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I actually don't know much about treatments, format wise and all, but story is story and character is character so I'll comment as I go.

If I ask or say something about doorman for example, you should consider making sure that is covered in the screenplay somewhere (assuming it's not entirely offbase in which case you should ignore it). Having a character, one of the cops or drunk thugs for example, spout off that doorman are morons would put the reader/viewer in the doormans court as nobody likes to be insulted over their job and if you show that your doormen are actually pretty smart it further makes the cops or drunk thugs who said that look a bit foolish to boot.

Have a love interst feel that way and eventually she comes around when she realizes the doorman isn't at all the way she thought.

Have the doorman realize that Yanks (or maybe some English) have this impression and use that to get them to underestimate him.

But be careful because the poetry/philisophical Bouncer story was already told in ROADHOUSE and you probably want your movie to be different. More of a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels so far.

You should consider criticism as potential fodder for your story. I find when I'm emotional (often from drinking) I write some of my best stuff. Yeah it needs to be rewritten and cleaned up but the raw emotions are powerful stuff. If my comments pissed you off use it.

I'll continue to read the treatment, but I don't really have any comments on second part except it's intrigueing and I'd never heard the Ketchup thing before.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Thanks for that. Ill tell you a bit about the story, but this is just a rough summary though, there are still loose ends to be tied up as it goes along.

The part that you have seen so far is just the beginning, kind of the history behind the characters (like Bruce Willis when hes at his lowest in the Die Hard movies),also showing that they were both good friends. The ketchup part I kind of changed. I had a friend and when he used to smoke he used to take a hit off a Crusha milkshake bottle to get the nasty taste out of his mouth. Anyway here is the plot summary. It may change your opinion on the story.

Also I dont want to go into the american/english thing as hopefully i will be aiming at america (always aim high. lol)

In this I had already formatted the characters names

Wayne - Leo.
Greg - Barney

Project Proposal

Prepared by: WAYNE CAMPBELL,scriptwriter, director
July 19th, 2007
Proposal number: 000-0001
Plot Summary

Action-Comedy

Whilst trying to set their (martial arts?) business up leo and barney come across an old technique, (MK-ULTRA) allegedly used by the CIA. They decide to elaborate on this technique with both hliarious and disturbing consequences.

Leo Rossi and Barney thomas, have been best friends for years. They undertake a request to train three friends (Shane, Michael and Scott. Its not going very well though. Until, Leo and Barney are drunk one night and come up with an ingenious plan to train them to their limits.

After Leo takes an ad out in a survival magazine (without Barneys knowledge), they get a request from a number of people. They start on their way training them -combat school- but their is some students they have problems with. These are the ones eventually to become the Guinea Pigs.

We follow these two misunderstood geniuses and their proteges into various situations which both help and hinders the cause. Combining fighting, romance and total personality changes.

Realising that the same techniques can be adapted to enhance various aspects of personality, they realise that the world is their oyster.

Unbeknown to Barney and Leo though, there are security agencies watching them too, who have heard of their unorthodox techniques.

Their motives are unclear though....

And leo and barney soon realise ot everything is as it seems

Main characters rundown

Barney is an excellent martial arts insructor and has been good pals with Leo for many years.
Their area is streetfighting martial arts and believe situations should be tested to the limit.He is stubborn, strong-willed but also pliable to Leos suggestions when his ego gets to him.
Leo is kind of the dreamer and is trying to build Barneys business up with him.He is also strong willed and very driven, but sometimes he tries to do the right thing. Too much.
Barney and Leo (as good pals do) have their disagreeable moments and motives become unclear, they know that the technology they are using is working, but would they also dare to use it on each other.
And could it change each of them for the better

http://filmind.meetup.com/296/?gj=sj3

Now you're talking. Sort of Shangahi Soccer meets Enter the Dragon.

I'm gonna blabber here so take what you like (if any) and dump the rest.

The only way to get the Martial Arts Studio going is to prove themselves, the best way to do that is to win the local competition in the Fall. Only training takes too long. They have the techniques to win if they had a year or so to train but they don't have that time and injuries and failures result. They both work part time in a local bar to help pay the bills to keep the business going for now.

One of the club regulars is an old drunk who mumbles that he was in the CIA. Nobody pays attention to him but eventually, after attempts to train the students come up short, our heros decide to listen to him. He tells them about MK-ULTRA. At first they don't believe him until he demonstrates.

See he dated the hot waitress at the bar for awhile. Everyone thought he had money, or she did it out of pity. She never said anything bad about him. Turns out he used some MK-ULTRA techniques on her. He has some signal and as soon as he does it she starts cleaning the floor or something. Another signal and she comes over and rubs his back. Our heros are confused, disgusted, and suddenly listening. They try the signal and it doesn't work, or works differently (kick in the balls instead of backrub, can't have our agents turned just because someone figured out the signal can we?)

So the old guy becomes a bit like the coach in Dodgeball showing them how to speed up the training using the MK-ULTRA techniques. He's also changed, improved, and forgotten sections of the techniques but it should work. It's a short montage then he shrugs. "It's a learning training technique, not a fighting technique. That's your job Chuck Norris. Teach them to fight" and our old CIA guy retreats into the background again, nodding approval, shaking his head in disgust, gettin backrubs from the hot waitress and drinking again.

Of course something he does causes the security agencies to take notice. The old guy is wanted dead. Perhaps they assume he's training a elite team or something so now our heros are in trouble as well. Near the end, when things are ready to go from Bad to worse
he should be killed leaving our heros on their own to compete in the local martial arts competition and deal with the CIA/exKGB assassins trying to kill them.

I also see a subplot with a competing Martial Arts studio which harrasses them during training and attacks the bar from time to time. At the end the head of the other Martial Arts studio is defeated and humiliated by the geekiest trainee in our heroes academy and all but the worst of the students join our heros academy.

Well that's all I got for now.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Thats really good thanks, the competition, I had thought of that wasnt sure whether to use it though. The old drunk is a really good idea as well, not sure whether to have him killed though or whether to let the heroes think he was killed. I really like the idea of the girl in the bar, may pencil that in. I had come up with the hypnotist, but I think that works better.

I have been thinking of working (long term) into spanning this into a couple of films. You see i thought the first one could be more around the martial arts and the inner conflicts in the subconscious (like the Hulk, Bill Bixby version though).

Because the MK-Ultra could be put to different training, it could be a valuable tool for the CIA/MI5/whoever. A long abandoned/presumably forgot weapon. So the security forces then want the protagonists to train their own agents or to recruit people for them.

I also want it to be a bit edgy, so that the viewer knows that what leo and Barney are doing is wrong, but are rooting for them at the same time. Im going to have a sleep and think now. in that order. Its 1am. Will have some downtime tomorrow and do some more.

Cheers for your help

http://filmind.meetup.com/296/?gj=sj3

Having them think he's dead and then having him come back at the end could work really well. It lightens up the end and of course he led the CIA into thinking he was dead once before. There's no other way to retire in peace.

So then does he come back right before the credits or does he show up in time to help in the big final battle when everything looks hopeless. Well that depends upon the screenplay up to that point.

The thing is what Leo and Barney are doing is wrong if the trainees don't really know what's going on. That they are guinee pigs.

Okay, another thought that brings in the hypnotist. Leo and Barney train their guinee pigs all day and night, but during the night it's the MK-ULTRA training. When they asked the guys for the extra effort naturally the guinee pigs said no so one of our heros and CIA guy started doing it anyway (this is a bone of contention between the heros). Of course the guinee pigs don't really remember the training so they need to draw in an old hypnotist friend to plug in some fake memories. The memories start to get outlandish as they run out of ideas for why the guys didn't make it home. At some point our heros have to program the trainees to go home and pay the bills, check up on the cats or whatever.

Part of the training after awhile is to work as a bouncer at the local pub which is now targetted by the enemy dojo.

Oh, and one last thing. If you drink booze (or something like that) it can supress the training. Get our guys drunk and they're useless for a couple of days as the booze screws with the chemicals being used. This comes to play right before the big competition when the best student in our heros dojo gets drunk and can't fight worth a damn, leaving the geekiest one to fight the top guy in the enemy dojo. It also explains why CIA guy gets drunk. Not only does it surpess his memories but he keeps him from hurting people, which our heros discover after they detox him one weekend.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Another idea that might be funny is to have the normal students chased off by the competing Dojo, leaving our heros dead in the water when they get out of jail heavily in debt (from the bail and the damage to the club). They have to win the competition to stay in business (and save their friends bar as he mortgaged it to help them). Then they meet the CIA guy and he tells them he can help them teach anyone in three months if they have something worth teaching that is. You take care of the physical part and I'll take care of the speed training part.

He drafts the handful of total drunks in the bar. These are guys that show up when the bar opens at 1 in the afternoon. Who's gonna miss them if they don't come home for awhile? OUt of shape, well that's not my problem, you were gonna deal with the physical side.

This allows you to have comedy based on them being out of shape (too thin, too fat, really wanting that scotch (but getting the MK-ULTRA cocktail instead). I can already picture a pretty funny montage combining the MK-ULTRA stuff with the out of shape stuff. Then, finally, the best of this group gets a cocktail and makes himself useless just in time for the competition.

It also means that you don't have to hire a bunch of martial arts studs, well you'll want some for the enemy team but our heros can be regular joes made good through the training and all. They can be buff actors in the sequel.

I imagine our heros have a friend who is also a doctor. They meet him on poker nights and all. They bring him in to look over their trainees and he has shocking news. The trainees are really beat down by the training. They are risking their lives if they continue at this crazy stuff. This causes more trouble between the heros as one doesn't like the use and abuse of the drunks and the other thinks (properly so) that this is their only chance and the drunks have never looked better. The CIA guy thinks nobody will miss these drunks, who cares. Of course he was one of them recently, as he's sobered he's becoming a bit of an arse until they finally give him a drink to shut him up. That's not long before he is killed (or at least they think he was) and they are racked with guilt because it's their fault.

One way the CIA guy messed with the hot waitress was he had a symbol that would get her to charge him for ice tea and give him scotch instead. Later she says she was pretty sure she gave the CIA guy iced tea as his final drink. Of course nobody believes her by this point because he's used his power on her but that's what he did. He had her switch the drinks and thus was sober and faking drunk.

Couple of bits: The CIA guy has the drunk trainees practice in old Red Army bullet proof vests. The heavy weight is evenly distributed and will help them get into shape faster. Naturally the bullet proof vests save their lives when an assassination team attacks leaving our heros to wonder if the whole thing was a lucky accident or if the CIA guy knew a hit was likely.

The symbol that triggers learning, or certain acts are like the motions used by third base coaches in Baseball to signal it's time to steal, or bunt. This comes into play when a baseball game is on the bar tv and the waitress watches a signal and gives a table of folks scotch instead of beer.

CIA guy droning on into the headsets of the trainees. Telling one guy he's a sexual stud, another one an olympic athelete and the drunks start to live up to the stuff. He also asks them questions, the original program was designed to get info after all. He asks one drunk about his hot ex-wife. Asks another where he buys his pot, and we see he's got the waitress listening to a headset and he asks her if she's ever done it with another woman and other sex related questions.

The subliminal training audio is somehow run through the DJ's mix. Nobody in the bar hears it but they all respond in a certain way. The guys playing darts all hit the 20 for example. The guys dancing suddenly get halfway decent as they overcome their fear. The bartenders start flipping their bottles around like in the movie Cocktail and the waitresses dance on the bar. It was a great day, whatever you did do it again.

The next day they run the relaxation tape and nearly everyone falls asleep in the bar.

You mentioned a series. Well the CIA thinks the CIA guy is creating a hit team. In the next one you could develop the idea that he actually was/is creating a hit team and in that one they have a mission. In the third they realize the CIA guy is not a good guy at all and they go up against him.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Hia pal, just woke up, sort of thinkink about this. Got some more to upload tomorrow, but the battery is running out on my macbook. I see you have been working hard and have helped with some really good ideas.

The part about the bulletproof vests.

I used to train in a flak jacket made from ballistic nylon, that was used in the falklands. It really was very heavy. Coincidence, im not sure.

Ive also got a house in bulgaria so we could do a scene where they go there to train and thats when they pick up the old red army (soviet, i imagine thats what you mean) bulletproof vests. This could be part of their training. This would get them away from the local bar, as you say noone would supposedly miss them, and you could have the inspiring music in the background.

Also as you say in one of the other sequels, the CIA guy could have been secretly training them.

The tables could also have been turned on Leo and Barney in that they were secretly getting trained as well.

We have done some surveillance/bodyguard stuff so have some funny stories/scenes from their too.

Also with them going to bulgaria/russia this also attracts the attention of the security forces and thats when they start showing up on the radar.

The CIA guy, when sober realises how his life has been screwed up by the CIA (he may have been a professor or something but was actually a guinea pig too) and wants his revenge, so even though he is doing for the benefit of the group, he is conflicted because he also wants to use them all for his own ends.

When i was doing my training and knifefighting this was really good. One day we wanted to see if it would withstand the knife properly, so my pal (greg) stabbed me several times as hard as he could, but it had no effect. this could be part of their training. Like Rocky 4.

When i was writing the treatment at the beginning of the day, they was going to be stopped working on the door because of the fight and instead concentrating solely on the training.

i included the part about the missing tape from the nightclub that could prove their innocence. This, even though the manager wasnt going to allow to be used directly (for his own reasons) was going to be spliced into footage that was shown in the training.

Thus the guinea pigs would actually think they were witnesses even though they werent. This would help to vindicate the heroes. Towards the end

This is part of the reason why i thought about doing a sequel/trilogy as there is a lot of different courses it could take.

I am going to sleep now though friend, will hope to collaborate some more with you soon.

I think i do pretty much the same as you in that i tend to write everything down and then change parts later if need be. Once you have lots of ideas and suggestions you can form a better idea of the route you want to take.

Also i will send my friends link for his martial arts website, he goes over to america now and again to train.

One character is truly based on him and (some) of the stories are our own experiences.

Although some things have been changed, i.e giving each other small flaws to help the characters progress.

http://www.greg-hall.co.uk/

You have been really helpful.

And i look forward to speaking again soon.

http://filmind.meetup.com/296/?gj=sj3

Damn, one last thing.

My house in bulgaria is next to a hunting ground. I dont think it would take too much to get the guy to let us use it as part of a film set their, That way they could also be taught Jungle warfare, traps etc.

They think its just to get their minds focused but the CIA guy has other plans.

I have two houses there, about 200km apart (but that wont matter so much), and one team can practise attacks while the other defends. This is all part of the army type training and well only see this to comic effect in the first film, but it would only actually come into play in the second and third films, where they are more like chuck norris/rambo. That would be good though as some are still fat/daft/shy etc at times when the treatment wears off.

It could be made like an Ateam/mission impossible/naked gu type film

http://filmind.meetup.com/296/?gj=sj3

The story is coming along very well, I sure do wish I had the time and patience to really develop a story like that. Please keep us updated on your progess and when the Fiim is done. Any deadlines yet?

no idea yet Ace, did the brief summary a couple of weeks ago.

Other than that all of the treatment stuff and ideas falling into place has been done today (with a lot of help) mainly through this forum.

If you read the posts and have any ideas please post them also,

cheers, wayne

http://filmind.meetup.com/296/?gj=sj3

I think your additions work seemless with the stuff I've been thowing out there so hopefully you'll be able to use some stuff. Old British flak jackets work just as well as Soviets as long as they would actually stop bullets. I know AK-47s tend to cut through most kevlar so I was thinking if you made them Eastern block people might assume it's something they didn't know about. Still, who can tell Bulgarian mock-ups of Soviet flak jackets from a British one? Very few and those will give you the benefit of the doubt.

I can see the club/dojo destroyed in an attack and the group going to Bulgaria. They have insurance but they can't train there anymore and they've got like a month left before the competition. The CIA guy has a safe house in Bulgaria so they go there to train. Of course one of the training missions is to attack another location and bring back a Macguffin of some kind. Seems less like practice than an assault to our two heros but they go along with it anyway.

The bad guys attack the martial arts competition (after our heros defeat the rival dojo) trying to get the McGuffin back whatever it is. By then the heros think the exCIA guy is dead and they have no idea what he did with it so there is no way out of the fight.

Bulgaria works better if the whole thing takes place in the UK. This is not totally necessary but leaving the US to hide in Bulgaria seems a huge jump. Unless the CIA guy has some kind of cheap transport available as well. Some friends working for Air America or the like.

You might want to make the hitmen be Warsaw block exKGB rather than CIA. Leaving our heros wondering if the exCIA guy is really exCIA and not on some kind of current operation.

And regarding the tape bit, it works well. It lands them in jail because the bar owner doesn't use it to defend our heros (creating tension between the three) and because it can pull them out of the fire when the rival Dojo finally tries to get them arrested for a parol violation or something. Mailing the tape to the dojo shows that although the Dojo is a rival they have honor and insist the charges be dropped. The fake name bit comes in because the hot waitress/or assistant manager had them sign up and the club owner doesn't like the idea, he thinks it makes things worse.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

With a lot of help. Bosh, it was your idea that started the chain. Your idea is what they call high concept. Martial arts school uses questionable CIA training methods to win competition. A lot of this stuff just writes itself based on that. A lot of what I've written will probably be junk by the time you're writing things out, other ideas will show up based on things. It's fun brainstorming and that's not true with every idea.

So far you've said you have access to places in Bulgaria (and I assume can take establishing shots of the airport and some city shots to really set the location) and you have flak jackets. Any other props or locations?

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Regarding the hot waitress.

I've been thinking you need a female lead in there. She's the most likely unless you have other ideas. She should be the fiance of one of the main characters. Which means they are jealous when they find out she dated the exCIA guy, it also means she comes with them to Bulgaria, and it means that they have to consider the possibility that the CIA guy somehow manipulated her into meeting them and thus starting everything that led to their training attack in Bulgaria. Of course they blow this off as very far fetched but it's in their mind (and better yet in the Audiences mind if you set it up right).

During the climax it might be nice to have her save the day. Basically she's been a victim for comedic relief so far, what they don't know is she was a trained assassin or something as well. At least the exCIA guy taughter her a few things that come in useful in the end (throwing stars or using a gun). It might also be a nice twist at the very end to have her use a hand signal to get her husband to rub her feet or something to show she's a bit more aware of everything than she's let on.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

All seems really good, I will do some different scenarios in more of treatment later.

The flak jactect, we dont have them anymore, i meant that with having used the m ourselves it did prove to be an invaluable training aid.

Also bulgaria, would work better if in uk.

But i thought it could be interchangeable with somewhere in amaerica, out in the sticks, the same locations could feasibly be pased off for elsewhere.

I have to go to work for a few hours. When i get back ill start trying to piece some stuff together.

Best regards, wayne

http://filmind.meetup.com/296/?gj=sj3