Television Production

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Reflection. I'm going to look back on how this project went, in hopes of improving the work for the next project. Stages Ideas In the beginning of the project, I went through the process of trying to plan ideas and settle on something that was viable as well as interesting. When I have an idea, I know it's the one, but for this project I struggled with it coming to me. I had some trouble in the beginning of the project which disrupted the flow of development but some of the ideas were good, just didn't have the viability. Development When I settled on the idea I began to develop it further by attempting to start the script and planning the characters. I used Powerpoint because it allows for an easier presentation of the individual character profiles and also allows for ample image use, such as moodboards. We began the casting call to get people interested as early as possible. We also started researching locations to get an idea of setting to help the dev...

Research.  Different aspects of this project require a lot of research to ensure that we are portraying events accurately, even if they are fictional.  Content We carried out research into the content, particularly revolving around Martin's arrest to ensure that we got our facts straight about that process. We were able to use these documents that detail the law about drink driving: This document from the sentencing council details the kind of sentence that an offender can expect. For Martin's crime of causing death by driving under the influence of drink, the maximum sentence is 14 years. For Martin, we decided that his sentence would be 5 years with the same in rehabilitation, a ban from driving, and community sentence (this can include things such as cleaning graffiti and cleaning streets, among other services). We decided on this because it was in line with this document, but also made sense with the age of Rob. We wanted him to be around the age of 16 and the...

Tests. It's important to test out our ideas before going into production, because if we've had practice it will make for a smoother flow of difficult scenes.  Casting During casting, we tested the actors on their ability to improvise. Although this isn't a test in terms of production, it helped us a lot to know who is going to have enough confidence to improvise without too much prompt to do so. If we prompt them to improvise, it will seem forced, but if we brief them on moments that could include improvisation, they might add something that we hadn't thought of. In the past, moments of improvisation have drastically improved scenes with just the smallest action, such as Mac swigging from the vodka bottle in DEADline .  During the casting, we first asked them to read part of scene 15, where Rob tries to convince Martin to continue with his AA meetings. We chose this because it's a particularly personal scene which really shows the pair's relationship....

Development. In order to show development within the project, I'm going to break down my initial ideas, where they originated and how they led to what the script is today.  My notes I used a Onenote notebook to collate all of my original ideas into one place. This was a useful tool to digitise my ideas, make them easily accessible and easily customisable. Breaking down my ideas Idea 1: Friendship My very first idea was about a pair of friends at university, trying to do as much as they could together before they moved away from each other at the end of their academic year. This was obviously based off of my own experience, because it's something I'm particularly worried about when it comes to the end of this year. I'll have to move away from some really close friends, and keeping in touch is really important to me. This was inspired by Somerstown and the friendship addressed in that film, but also the scene towards the end of The Perks of Being a Wal...

Shonda Rhimes. Shonda Rhimes is a well-known showrunner, with many very well-known productions across multiple platforms. To name a few, Grey's Anatomy; Private Practice; How to get Away with Murder, and Scandal.  Grey's Anatomy Shonda created popular TV series Grey's Anatomy in 2005 and it's still going today. If that's not enough credit to her, she was the series' most prolific writer, and one of the main executive producers. She created the show as a statement against racism and sexism in TV, by doing colourblind casting and writing female characters with more dimension, not just the loving wife or nice friend. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she states "[Women] never got to be nasty or competitive or hungry or angry... But who gets to be the bitch? Who gets to be the three-dimensional woman?".  Grey's Anatomy has also proven itself to be an encouraging work space for the actors, some of which have gone on to be directors, as wel...

Pre Production. It was important in this project for the pre production paperwork to be at our highest standard. We also worked hard to secure relevant locations for filming, rather than settling for easier locations like we have in the past.  In this post I'll be including copies of our paperwork, my emails to location managers, the council and other authorities, as well as breaking down the process, a bit about the website, and what was important for me. Paperwork Project Development This is a copy of the Onenote notebook I used in the very early stages of production to consolidate all of my ideas. It is in somewhat of a disarray but contains all of the initial thought processes that lead to this project. The other drafts of the script are available on the website here . I just didn't want to post them all to here and overload this page! Location Maps I arranged for our Airbnb host to send me a copy of the floorplan of the house we will be filming in so ...

Joe Swanberg. Joe Swanberg is primarily a writer, director, and producer, most recently working on Easy (2016) for Netflix. I want to use his work as an example to work from, especially with it falling into the 'mumblecore' movement. When we pitched our idea, Joe Swanberg was mentioned as feedback for us to look into. I've found his work inspiring and wanted to break down why, and how it might affect my work. Easy Easy, made for Netflix, is an anthology show revolving around the ups and downs of relationships. Joe's way of working on the show was very interesting to me. Speaking to NPR, he revealed that he  didn't use a script , instead, he wrote an outline of the scene, and then let his actors improvise. They worked through each scene in this way. "I always felt: wow, it'd be really interesting if these characters just spoke for themselves." He also filmed each episode in 4 days at a time. This revealed to me just how much can get done, eve...

Pitch. To begin the pre-production, I had to pitch my idea to the class with the help of director Esme. I will explain how I researched for the pitch and the feedback I received from my classmates. pitch my slides At this stage, I've brainstormed the characters and the direction of the plot as well as addressing my inspiration behind the project. My aim was for the audience of the pitch to understand the aesthetic of the story and take the examples I give as a reference for how the film may present itself both plot-wise and visually. Somers Town by Shane Meadows was a key inspiration due simply to how it represents the relationship between 2 people trying to find their way in a landscape that isn't quite built for them. This is how I feel about the father character in Tributaries. I was worried that people might only focus on him as a criminal/ drunk, however, the feedback from the pitch (which I will delve into later in the post) was positive and it seeme...