Network
Well, I thought I was gonna make my first real entry to the new "If I Could Remake" series I want to start, but instead I give to you another of my many ideas in progress.
Network, once it finally figured itself out, is a spy thriller about a black ops ground intelligence inflitator codenamed Ghost who was forgotten and lost during the US Intelligence department consolidation and restructuring, who continues his mission of creating and expanding contacts who owe favors in various fields for some unknown later use. Put a gun to my head, and the high concept pitch for this would be, "It's a spy mix of Vengeance Unlimited and The Pretender."
In reality, what this story was was a way to give a bunch of characters I had at the time who had no homes a place to live. There were at least four to six characters who I thought were really interesting as characters, but that was it; I knew they couldn't carry a full story all by themselves, at least not any story I could think of or wanted to tell. So I was stuck with pages of people who were itching to be worked with, as well as scenes I wanted to use them in but not enough meat for any one to go the way alone. So, now with intent, I specifically created a character to which all the others could connect to.
Basic Summary
So along came Ian Keithani, an Asian-American government spook, who I created solely to be able to use all the others; not specifically Asian, that aspect came as time went on, but IO like the hero not being a typical James Bond looking figure. And the more I added and worked on and expanded him and the story to be able to introduce the others who came before him, low and behold he had a lot more to him than I originally thought.
One thing I don't lack on is ideas. I have several notebooks of randomness, as well as past character profiles, and stories I dropped because they were craptastic. More and more I found that with Ian I could incorporate a lot of those sidelined threads to weave together something that worked better than they did in any form alone before.
Project: Spector was a miltary intelligence experiment that was meant to test more simple methods of ground work. They trained three finalist candiates for different elements of field work such as local inhabitant incorporation, enemy immersion infiltration, and intimidation by fear, codenames Ghost, Phantom and Demon. Sometime in the late 90's-early Oughts, the intelligence field experienced a massive restructuring in an attempt to more consolidate its information and tactics and multiple layered and redundant departments. With something so large scale, some things were bound to fall through the cracks. All three operatives were in the field at the time and as a top-secret project, they got "lost". No contact to base, no records, and not a lot of people still willing to acknowledge they existed, Ghost found himself without a mission. So he continued his basic objective, finding and creating new contacts at various levels of society, expanding his network of people until he finally has a use for them
Which is not to say he just sits on his ass and does nothing of value. While he may not have an offical mission, he still goes after smaller "projects", sometimes to right a wrong, often times to gain another favor. He helps when he can, but won't totally go out of his way unless he can see or find a beneifit to it. He's not going to leap in and save the princess just because that's how it goes.
"Ghost" was a thief/assassin character I had back in high school, female then, who I hadn't made good use of in the following years (also I found out I wasn't the first to make a grab at a female assassin character clothed all in white), whose name I pulled because it was better than running around without one; it was only fairly recently that Ian got a name at all. I'm not exactly sure where the whole supernatural naming theme came from, but it worked for the aspects of the their roles; Ghost was meant to be unseen, using immediate local resources to fulfill mission objectives instead of himself directly, Phantom disappeared into undercover work, and Demon... well, she lived up to her name.
Characters
While there are more, there are really only a specific few I want to talk about, because they were the ones that really nagged at me to give them bigger roles; or just roles period. Also, most of them don't have names, only titles or Who They Are, along with the specific scenes I saw them in.
"Black Betty" is a 12 - 14 year-old girl, orphaned at a young age and brought up to be an underground kid street fighter. Yeah, see what I really wanted, because I wanted this to be a movie scene intially, was an excuse to have a little girl kick the ass of grown ups; damn my lack of motivation and the creation of Kick-Ass. Anyway, Ian had helped get her out, found her a good home, and was willing to help out again. I called her Black Betty because that's the song I heard as her background music. She kicks ass and takes names.
"The Nun" was an ex-militia soldier in hiding after a mission went south, now trying to atone for her past; Ian helped hide her in the church system, greasing some wheels and making some donations to get her into a convent without a lot of questions. She's one of a few who don't exactly like Ian and what he does, even though he's helping her. She knows it's all gonna hit the fan sooner or later, and she blames herself for turning the fan on in the first place. When it finally does come back, Ian prepared for that as well. During a scene where Ian places her in her new home, being delievered are a bunch of new ceramic crosses and statues for chapel decoration. He mentions that these will help protect her. What he doesn't mention, but she figures out, is he had them custom made to store assault rifles and ammo for in the eventual case of everything fucking up. Which it does.
"The Musician" is just that. A musician Ian helped in a rather banal way, but they stay in semi-regular contact. He's gay, and has a big crush on his manager, but really there's not much to him; he's a good guy, normal, and just living his life. So you know something bad's gonna happen to him.
"The Hacker", for lack of a better title, is one of a few people who Ian consistantly gets help from. Ian saved his life or some such occurance, and liked helping him so much his favor just got "extended". Hacker doesn't run the operation so much as he's the little black book, he complies the list of who all Ian is owed favors to, where they are, and who they immediately know who can help them. Not so much Big Brother, as Annoying Little Brother. While Ian knows his major contacts and is trained to remember all of them, it helps not having to rack his brain for everyone everywhere, and Hacker also is able to help in other ways; "Hacker" is a apt name I guess.
"Grandma" will probably be the funnest character to write for, because she's that cool old grandma everyone wishes they had. She likes to watch her "stories", i.e. WWF wrestling. She's home alone with her two puppie dogs, Sparkles and Bunnie, trained Doberman/Great Dane attack dogs. Don't touch her good china or she will cut you. Grandma is a old mafia wife, retired after her husband got whacked but still keeps an ear and finger in the current business. Thinks of Ian as a "cutie".
Also bearing mention are; the getaway driver who sings children's songs to keep calm, the two motorcyclists who act as interference on the road, a hotel conceirge, a wannabe bank robber who is recruited for undercover work in a prison, a ex-stripper turned apartment landlord, and several others. Some are no more than a title. Some have lines or larger purpose. All owe Ian a favor.
One thing I figured out part way into figuring it all out was that I couldn't jump into this story the way it was. There was no fresh eyes or way to explain things to the audience, because this wasn't a first-person story, and the way the story felt didn't allow for Ian to explain or rumminate on things he already knew. So, again, another character came along, "the Protege", a young woman Ian is, against her will and without her knowledge, training to be his replacement. Or at the least, continue his work should he no longer be alive to do so. With her I had reason to explain things. Now I just really need to tie her into the whole puzzle.
Phantom doesn't really have a large part in all this. He went undercover into the criminal underground, immersing himself into the culture to eventually take it over, the idea being if he lead the largest group with the widest influence, he'd be in prime position to bring it all down. When he was "lost", he found himself leading a criminal empire... with no way to bring it down without getting himself killed.
Now Demon, Demon is the big ball of fuckery in all this. Demon, bless her name, is a tad nuts. Balls to the wall crazy, even. Her specialty was scare tactics; go in and burn everything, kill everyone, salt the earth, and then make sure everyone could see it happen. Her's was a way of fear, to make the enemy so piss-shit scared of her reputation that just knowing she had an interest in you was enough to turn yourself in. And she was good at her job.
When the shuffle happened, Demon pretty much went into business for herself, hiring herself out to whoever wanted her. Sometimes targetting big names themselves just to build her resume. And she doesn't exactly like her old teammates. While Ian stayed fairly true to his mission parameters, Demon ditched hers as soon as she realized no one was watching. And then went to work.
The Story
This is something I still need to really carve out, because it's a such a big project. I really need to figure out everyone's place and where it all fits together; having an ending wouldn't hurt either. I know what the tipping point is, and until I recently thought about it I didn't think much of what was going to happen. Initally, Demon was going to announce her existance to Ian by killing off the Musician, very bloodily, simply to make her point that she knows where he is, who his friends are, and that she likes to finger paint.
The problem; I killed off the gay guy. Not that he's the only non-heterosexual character, I believe my Militia Nun is gay as well, but his is the most graphic and in your face death I have (so far). While it's making me question if I want to do it or not, the thing is I never thought of it as "killing off the gay character" as to me it was all "killing off the character who was in love". That he was gay didn't factor in, it was just a fascet of his character. He wasn't ~gay~, he just prefers men rather than women. But I know that, should this finally be finished, it's gonna be an issue to someone, and that someone is probably going to raise a big stink. But I don't want to censor myself in that regard just because I think someone somewhere is gonna gasp in horror in regards to the wrong thing. But it is something I noticed.
After his death, Demon starts a strike against all Ian's major or most recent contacts, so now I get my "ten-against-one-nun, in-a-church" shootout. If I remember right, Demon is actually after the Protege, who I think was the daughter of somebody in power, and Demon was hired to get her back. Once she found out her old pal Ghost was her competition, she just decided to have some extra fun.
There's still a lot to be worked out, as you can see. I have an opening scene with the wannabe bank robber that I really like, but still need to figure out where it fits in with the rest of the the story I have as well. Given the seemingly hodge-podge of what I do have, that's not going to be easy. But it's a fun project, and has a nice expansive cast to work with.
Network, once it finally figured itself out, is a spy thriller about a black ops ground intelligence inflitator codenamed Ghost who was forgotten and lost during the US Intelligence department consolidation and restructuring, who continues his mission of creating and expanding contacts who owe favors in various fields for some unknown later use. Put a gun to my head, and the high concept pitch for this would be, "It's a spy mix of Vengeance Unlimited and The Pretender."
In reality, what this story was was a way to give a bunch of characters I had at the time who had no homes a place to live. There were at least four to six characters who I thought were really interesting as characters, but that was it; I knew they couldn't carry a full story all by themselves, at least not any story I could think of or wanted to tell. So I was stuck with pages of people who were itching to be worked with, as well as scenes I wanted to use them in but not enough meat for any one to go the way alone. So, now with intent, I specifically created a character to which all the others could connect to.
Basic Summary
So along came Ian Keithani, an Asian-American government spook, who I created solely to be able to use all the others; not specifically Asian, that aspect came as time went on, but IO like the hero not being a typical James Bond looking figure. And the more I added and worked on and expanded him and the story to be able to introduce the others who came before him, low and behold he had a lot more to him than I originally thought.
One thing I don't lack on is ideas. I have several notebooks of randomness, as well as past character profiles, and stories I dropped because they were craptastic. More and more I found that with Ian I could incorporate a lot of those sidelined threads to weave together something that worked better than they did in any form alone before.
Project: Spector was a miltary intelligence experiment that was meant to test more simple methods of ground work. They trained three finalist candiates for different elements of field work such as local inhabitant incorporation, enemy immersion infiltration, and intimidation by fear, codenames Ghost, Phantom and Demon. Sometime in the late 90's-early Oughts, the intelligence field experienced a massive restructuring in an attempt to more consolidate its information and tactics and multiple layered and redundant departments. With something so large scale, some things were bound to fall through the cracks. All three operatives were in the field at the time and as a top-secret project, they got "lost". No contact to base, no records, and not a lot of people still willing to acknowledge they existed, Ghost found himself without a mission. So he continued his basic objective, finding and creating new contacts at various levels of society, expanding his network of people until he finally has a use for them
Which is not to say he just sits on his ass and does nothing of value. While he may not have an offical mission, he still goes after smaller "projects", sometimes to right a wrong, often times to gain another favor. He helps when he can, but won't totally go out of his way unless he can see or find a beneifit to it. He's not going to leap in and save the princess just because that's how it goes.
"Ghost" was a thief/assassin character I had back in high school, female then, who I hadn't made good use of in the following years (also I found out I wasn't the first to make a grab at a female assassin character clothed all in white), whose name I pulled because it was better than running around without one; it was only fairly recently that Ian got a name at all. I'm not exactly sure where the whole supernatural naming theme came from, but it worked for the aspects of the their roles; Ghost was meant to be unseen, using immediate local resources to fulfill mission objectives instead of himself directly, Phantom disappeared into undercover work, and Demon... well, she lived up to her name.
Characters
While there are more, there are really only a specific few I want to talk about, because they were the ones that really nagged at me to give them bigger roles; or just roles period. Also, most of them don't have names, only titles or Who They Are, along with the specific scenes I saw them in.
"Black Betty" is a 12 - 14 year-old girl, orphaned at a young age and brought up to be an underground kid street fighter. Yeah, see what I really wanted, because I wanted this to be a movie scene intially, was an excuse to have a little girl kick the ass of grown ups; damn my lack of motivation and the creation of Kick-Ass. Anyway, Ian had helped get her out, found her a good home, and was willing to help out again. I called her Black Betty because that's the song I heard as her background music. She kicks ass and takes names.
"The Nun" was an ex-militia soldier in hiding after a mission went south, now trying to atone for her past; Ian helped hide her in the church system, greasing some wheels and making some donations to get her into a convent without a lot of questions. She's one of a few who don't exactly like Ian and what he does, even though he's helping her. She knows it's all gonna hit the fan sooner or later, and she blames herself for turning the fan on in the first place. When it finally does come back, Ian prepared for that as well. During a scene where Ian places her in her new home, being delievered are a bunch of new ceramic crosses and statues for chapel decoration. He mentions that these will help protect her. What he doesn't mention, but she figures out, is he had them custom made to store assault rifles and ammo for in the eventual case of everything fucking up. Which it does.
"The Musician" is just that. A musician Ian helped in a rather banal way, but they stay in semi-regular contact. He's gay, and has a big crush on his manager, but really there's not much to him; he's a good guy, normal, and just living his life. So you know something bad's gonna happen to him.
"The Hacker", for lack of a better title, is one of a few people who Ian consistantly gets help from. Ian saved his life or some such occurance, and liked helping him so much his favor just got "extended". Hacker doesn't run the operation so much as he's the little black book, he complies the list of who all Ian is owed favors to, where they are, and who they immediately know who can help them. Not so much Big Brother, as Annoying Little Brother. While Ian knows his major contacts and is trained to remember all of them, it helps not having to rack his brain for everyone everywhere, and Hacker also is able to help in other ways; "Hacker" is a apt name I guess.
"Grandma" will probably be the funnest character to write for, because she's that cool old grandma everyone wishes they had. She likes to watch her "stories", i.e. WWF wrestling. She's home alone with her two puppie dogs, Sparkles and Bunnie, trained Doberman/Great Dane attack dogs. Don't touch her good china or she will cut you. Grandma is a old mafia wife, retired after her husband got whacked but still keeps an ear and finger in the current business. Thinks of Ian as a "cutie".
Also bearing mention are; the getaway driver who sings children's songs to keep calm, the two motorcyclists who act as interference on the road, a hotel conceirge, a wannabe bank robber who is recruited for undercover work in a prison, a ex-stripper turned apartment landlord, and several others. Some are no more than a title. Some have lines or larger purpose. All owe Ian a favor.
One thing I figured out part way into figuring it all out was that I couldn't jump into this story the way it was. There was no fresh eyes or way to explain things to the audience, because this wasn't a first-person story, and the way the story felt didn't allow for Ian to explain or rumminate on things he already knew. So, again, another character came along, "the Protege", a young woman Ian is, against her will and without her knowledge, training to be his replacement. Or at the least, continue his work should he no longer be alive to do so. With her I had reason to explain things. Now I just really need to tie her into the whole puzzle.
Phantom doesn't really have a large part in all this. He went undercover into the criminal underground, immersing himself into the culture to eventually take it over, the idea being if he lead the largest group with the widest influence, he'd be in prime position to bring it all down. When he was "lost", he found himself leading a criminal empire... with no way to bring it down without getting himself killed.
Now Demon, Demon is the big ball of fuckery in all this. Demon, bless her name, is a tad nuts. Balls to the wall crazy, even. Her specialty was scare tactics; go in and burn everything, kill everyone, salt the earth, and then make sure everyone could see it happen. Her's was a way of fear, to make the enemy so piss-shit scared of her reputation that just knowing she had an interest in you was enough to turn yourself in. And she was good at her job.
When the shuffle happened, Demon pretty much went into business for herself, hiring herself out to whoever wanted her. Sometimes targetting big names themselves just to build her resume. And she doesn't exactly like her old teammates. While Ian stayed fairly true to his mission parameters, Demon ditched hers as soon as she realized no one was watching. And then went to work.
The Story
This is something I still need to really carve out, because it's a such a big project. I really need to figure out everyone's place and where it all fits together; having an ending wouldn't hurt either. I know what the tipping point is, and until I recently thought about it I didn't think much of what was going to happen. Initally, Demon was going to announce her existance to Ian by killing off the Musician, very bloodily, simply to make her point that she knows where he is, who his friends are, and that she likes to finger paint.
The problem; I killed off the gay guy. Not that he's the only non-heterosexual character, I believe my Militia Nun is gay as well, but his is the most graphic and in your face death I have (so far). While it's making me question if I want to do it or not, the thing is I never thought of it as "killing off the gay character" as to me it was all "killing off the character who was in love". That he was gay didn't factor in, it was just a fascet of his character. He wasn't ~gay~, he just prefers men rather than women. But I know that, should this finally be finished, it's gonna be an issue to someone, and that someone is probably going to raise a big stink. But I don't want to censor myself in that regard just because I think someone somewhere is gonna gasp in horror in regards to the wrong thing. But it is something I noticed.
After his death, Demon starts a strike against all Ian's major or most recent contacts, so now I get my "ten-against-one-nun, in-a-church" shootout. If I remember right, Demon is actually after the Protege, who I think was the daughter of somebody in power, and Demon was hired to get her back. Once she found out her old pal Ghost was her competition, she just decided to have some extra fun.
There's still a lot to be worked out, as you can see. I have an opening scene with the wannabe bank robber that I really like, but still need to figure out where it fits in with the rest of the the story I have as well. Given the seemingly hodge-podge of what I do have, that's not going to be easy. But it's a fun project, and has a nice expansive cast to work with.