Happy New Year!
I can't believe my new writing career is now two years old. If I had stayed on my original screenwriting path, I'd be about 26 right now - but since the women in my family live into their 90s - I'm right on schedule for a long writing career! Sure, my brain is filled with a ton of programming code after a successful technology career - but I got out early by selling my software company so that I could write. A huge part of my work involves my Native American heritage, which is odd, because I didn't find out I was Cherokee until Grandma Cook died, and I asked, where? My dad said she went back to the reservation.
I immersed myself in everything Cherokee, joined the tribe, applied for the Native American Media Alliance Fellowship and traced my ancestors back to North Carolina - finding out we were part of the Wolf Clan. I then wrote a script about the reintroduction of wolves into National Parks called Nature’s Way.
I wondered - what if we all returned to the reservation - not to die, but to live? Then I thought, why not reintroduce us to the National Parks like wolves? Imagine a futuristic virus-infected world where corporations are the governments, AI runs the world, and humans are stuck in their homes, monitoring the robots that grow our food, maintain the elderly in rest homes, and for kids - their education and relationships are online.
Reintroduction of Humans is about a Cherokee woman in a futuristic world, who convinces her family to participate in the reintroduction of Native Americans back into the National Parks to find her son, who was taken from her family because he was obese. A scripted Survivor!
My idea expanded after my AFI instructor, Matt Black, showed us Blade Runner's Voight-Kampff Test scene during my Native American Media Fellowship. The writer's strike was going strong and a big issue was AI - Artificial Intelligence. I put these three ideas together and wrote this as a short. I have no desire to be a filmmaker - I'm a writer, but one of my cohorts in the Native American Medial Alliance fellowship - Derek Quick - is an aspiring filmmaker. He has an award-winning short, Camping, that is making the festival circuit. There was a short fellowship that was sponsored by Indeed with the theme of getting a job - so I wrote the first ten pages and he submitted. Our short didn't win, but Reintroduction of Humans was still in my head - so I had to tell the story and I made it into a sitcom.
I wrote a scene similar to the clip in Blade Runner but made it funny. AI is confused - and it knows that she is Cherokee and must understand why Native Americans would shoot arrows into trees. She goes home excited - instead of monitoring robots that kill pigs, she will monitor the National Parks! Plus, she thinks this is where their son has been taken, and she might see him on the screen. But when 3 radio collars arrive, she realizes the job is much more - they have been selected for the project to reintroduce animals into the wild - including humans. Again excited - but the rest of the family is not, especially after their first orientation lesson. Kill their food? Possibly be the food? Seriously? The theme is survival - at first.
After the pilot, each episode involves another challenge. In the first season, it is all about survival; how to get water, what to eat, and most importantly - how to avoid things that want to eat them. They have lived in a world where they rarely encountered animals and their food was piped into their house and formed by a replicator oven. They must enlist the help of the other Native Americans living in the parks. In the second season, the survival concept changes as history repeats itself as there is fighting amongst the various tribes for territory and resources. The conflict moves from within their tribe to the other tribes. In the third season, outside forces threaten their existence. The AI ruling program wants to terminate the program and return them to "civilization," and she thinks her family will be delighted - but she's wrong.
The story engine is driven by each of the problems they encounter and the conflict from disagreements on how to solve their problems. For example, the daughter doesn't like in-person relationships and insists that another Native American boy leave "texts" - or carvings on trees to communicate. The pilot is titled Not Food and ends with the wolves and Cherokees being chased by the Apaches. Next is Training Day. The family starts their training on the reservation - and they learn about Derek. Then there is Flunked Out. Both Talitha and Alex want to go home, but Natalie insists on staying to see Derek again, and Episode 4 is Moving Day. It is time for the family to enter the park with other members of their “tribe.” Episode 5 is Bad Water - the new tribe finds out the hard way that there is good water - and “bad” water, followed by Run Faster. Alex is sure that something is stalking them - wanting to eat them and then Berries and Bears. Talitha convinces the family that bears can live on berries - but the bears are not happy with humans eating their food. The first season ends with I love you, Deer. Victory for the family when they bring down a deer, but this attracts the attention of the other tribes.
Characters
Natalie is in her (30s) - our fearless Cherokee protagonist who wants to find her son and a better life for her family - but at what cost?
Talitha is a skeptical teen about 14 or 15, a passionate animal lover, but hooked on technology and being vegan.
Dakota (17) An older teen, he's their Native American guide and teacher to help them survive in the wilderness and find Derek.
Derek was originally obese but is now 13; he's spent the past year in the wild and is now fit but concerned for his family.
Alex (30s)- is a Navajo hypochondriac, afraid of everything - especially bacteria and things that can eat him.
Like The Good Place, which made death funny - this dramedy maintains humor with exciting survival situations - for example, the pilot ends with Derek and Dakota being chased by a rival tribe - wearing radio collars and getting zapped, which is funny. But full of Indian culture, like Reservation Dogs.
View on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx_8Ja4anZU7427aV5A98VQUPYtmdfWJc
Canva (my entry for SeriesFest in May 2024)
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