Pre Production Unit Research (The Script and Storytelling) Making Sort Films by Clifford Thurlow

Book:
Making Sort Films (The complete Guide From Script to Screen) by Clifford Thurlow

This book gives the step by step process into how to make a short film by sections of the preproduction, to the crew, straight to the screen. Even within the contents page it is labeled into what aspects of  the pre production you are wishing to learned or perfect such as:

1 The Script

2 The Producer

3 The Director

4 The Editor

5 Finance and Distribution

6 Noise Control



Fig. 1 My Final Year Blog Media Production Year 3 (2012).


Starting the script, the whole film on paper describing as well as showing what the film is going to do and how it is going to be presented. What is most important in my experience when it comes to the script is that it has to be presented in a way that everyone can understand. As one of our professional lecturers, Steve Combs, said to us was that a script is showing rather then telling. So how do you start writing a script? Is there a secret? Well as the author of this book, Clifford Thurow writes...


'the secret is there is no secret. It's plain hard work. Scriptwriting is rewriting. Whatever goes   down on paper, however well it looks, and with the abundance of scriptwriting programs, it's probably going to look super, that first gush of words is unlikely to produce anything of greta value.' Thurlow,  C (2005) Making Sort Films The complete Guide From Script to Screen. New York Berg: 5.


But in order to produce a positive script is to know your story. Beginning middle and end. Plan the story out and make sense of your characters and their structures and how they act in the world you are about to invest them in.


'Character drives the plot, but the underlying theme, the message, is what holds the narrative together. Once you give birth to your characters, they are responsible for their own actions, and effects caused by those actions.' Thurlow,  C (2005) Making Sort Films The complete Guide From Script to Screen. New York Berg: 5.


Wheres a good place to start when it comes to a script? Most people would suggest going from the beginning as you can work your way down towards the ending. Unfortunately that would normally cause a long tiring process that normally cause you have have writers block by means of characters not being developed properly, the story loosing the plot, and slowly wondering what is going to happen next.

Now to start a script you must focus on your ending. First know what your story is about, you must determine what is story and what is a plot as they are completely different things all together. For example what is the story for Romeo and Juliet? I asked my parents this very question and as expected their response was... "Oh it's about this guy Romeo and he meets this girl Juliet and they are from separate families who are at war." Wrong! That is describing the plot of the film, the story is about Love and Tragedy, when two star crossed lovers fight for their right to love one another while both of their families are at war. That, (to the best of my ability) is the story, aiming to what it represents and a quick synopsis to construct the audience an imagine to show what they are about to see.

So aiming to pitch the story in your head is always a good start as you would want to make your audience think about what they have just seen. Do you want the plot to have a marble lesson at the end? Do you want your film to reflect on a life experience of yours and have it told in a way you want your audience to feel the same way you felt? The resolution as a whole is, will it make your audience want to go and see your film? Are your characters going to take control of your script and alternatively bring your audience into their world?


'Are we the reader or viewer, interested in these people? Do we want to follow their story? Do the characters start at point A and shift subtly, cleverly, gradually and convincingly to point B?' Thurlow,  C (2005) Making Sort Films The complete Guide From Script to Screen. New York Berg: 5.


All of these questions are asked while you are writing. I have learned that sometimes at the end is where you find your beginning. Of course now we get to the horrifying point of scriptwriting, will your audience understand your story to the point where they will not get board or get too confused. If you want your audience to feel something, with and show the story on how you can make them feel that way. If you want them to hate the villain of the story, then write the villain as a person no one wants to meet, greet and complement. Like king Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones, he is portrayed as a spoiled brat who has the habit of degrading and torturing women.  Furthermore he is moody and makes fun of everyone and whoever even look down on him either by hight or verbally he uses the excuse that he is the king and intently get anyone to be executed to show how powerful he is. He had became one of the most hated characters in media history and the writing truly showed, the audience truly loved to hate him as he was developed well and his image stayed with audiences as a very bad character.


'The audience wants to be surprised, not disappointed by the obvious. Each scene should have its own beginning, middle, and end, a minor conflict leading to resolution and on to the next scene, the characters growing from each development.' Thurlow,  C (2005) Making Sort Films The complete Guide From Script to Screen. New York Berg: 7.


This is just some of things to consider while writing the script, these are just some of the thing we covered in this post:

• What is it about? Not the plot
• What do you want your resolution to be?
• How do you want to impact your audience?
• How will characters effect the story as well as your audience?

Imagelist:

Fig.1 My Final Year Blog Media Production Year 3 (2012) [Online] At: https://omotayodaramolayr3.wordpress.com/page/8/ (Accessed on 2510/2016). 

Bibliography:

Thurlow,  C (2005) Making Sort Films The complete Guide From Script to Screen. New York.

Dissertation Research - The Superhero and The Super Ego

When it comes to Sigmund Freud's work on the unconscious human mind, he constructed a average state of the human brain into 3 parts, the id, the ego and finally the superego. Starting with the id, this part of the brain comes directly from our unconscious and is developed from the start when we are born. This section of the brain drives our desires either they be mentally or physically (often sexual).

Next comes the ego, our sense of reality and fiction. The id creates the ego and develops it from our experiences and the fulfilment of our desires.  The ego is one of the main parts of the brain that more often tries to take control and get us back into the world if our id goes out of control.

Now here is what I am going to be focusing on in this journal entry, the superego. The part of our brain that comes right in the middle of the ego and id. The part of our brain that brings forth all of our experiences and lessons for our upbringings and determine what we think is right and wrong, good and evil.

Firstly what makes a superhero stand out? Is it their costumes or their powers? Or could it be their sense of their superegos? Using their power to fight for what they think is right and in their sense for all that is good. The representation of superheroes in comics as well as media have used this formula time and time again, the superheroes are always portrayed as the good guys and with that set in place the reader or viewer can establish who they must root for and what they want to be or become.

World Retail Awards gives nod to one of ours (2016) [Online] At: http://www.applianceretailer.com.au/2016/04/world-retail-awards-give-nod-to-one-of-ours/#.WAnnpWWU5Ig (Accessed on 21/10/2016).

Media manipulation can be a strong thing towards an audience especially if done in the right way. If a superhero is an influence on someone because of what they do like saving and helping people then logic dictates that the audience member would want to do the same. 

But when it come to the psychology of our super heroes in terms of their fictional characters, we can split the universes up like Freud's 3 part brain structure.

When it comes to using the comic superheroes universes Marvel and DC we can contrast yet a another difference between these two. For the superheroes represented into the Marvel universe, we have the team up of the Avengers. Ironman, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, The Vision, Black Panther, Antman, Falcon and Spiderman and many others. When it came to the time in Civil War when they had to pick between the government controlling when they can use their powers and having no restrictions, did they talk it over with rational thinking with their egos in check? Nope instead they went all out with each other and fought for each of their opinions and what mattered the most. 

It is my opinion and somewhat understand that I believe that the Marvel universe represents the id part of the brain. When you look at Hulk and Thor and understand a reason of why they where kept out of the Civil War, it is because of their ids. Hulk is a rampaging monster, with good intentions but yet his ego is hard to get control of and his id is constantly being taken control and messed about all over the place. With Thor the concept is somewhat the same, his id takes control whenever he does battle with anyone he comes across as an enemy. He doesn't use rational thinking the same as the Avengers, his pride blinds his ego from seeing what his strength can really do. Not just to his foes but other people if he is not careful.

As for DC, the ego representation is quite high compared to lots of their superheroes. Batman uses his ego to take control in order not to not loose control and badly injure or even kill his foes like the Joker. Superman's ego allows his to not unleash his full power as it would destroy all life on Earth and maintains his id in control.

DC Superheroes are all about maintain control over their egos and not loosing their full power unless they have to. The flash has to control how much speed he uses otherwise he could just the light barrier and go through time to a point where he could potentially destroy the fabric of space and time. 

Despite their differences, the superhero universes as a result end with the Superego, the part of the mind which determines right and wrong.  After the Hulk or Wolverine go on their rampage, their ego take control again and realise what they had done was wrong and try to maintain their egos once more. DC Superheroes often have that rare occasion where their foes force them to unleash their ids and use their full power to show the pool the world what they can be capable of so they could be seen as monsters. They all stand for what is right and using Sigmund Freud's iceberg 3 part brain structure we can see what make the id, the ego and the superego of the superhero universes.

Idea Development - Story, Plot and Pre Production Package

House of Delinquents

Genre: Dark Comedy

Story: Miss Identification and Regret

4 university delinquents must try and save themselves from being evicted from their home when they are confronted a by Jehovah's Witness who they think is their university dorm inspector.


Beginning:

• Johova's Witness is knocking on doors and is being rejected.
• After his last rejection he starts walking towards the delinquents house.
• Delinquents receive a letter from university about the dorm inspector coming.
• Jehovah's Witness drives and is mistaken as the dorm inspector.

Middle:

• Delinquents devise a plan of action to make sure that they are not evicted.
• Jehovah's Witness gets invited to the living room and is distracted by each of the delinquents and the rest of them go about the house trying to clean it the best they can.

• The delinquent characters are developed.

• While waiting the Jehovah's Witness asks a couple of question and recipes rude and funny answers from the delinquents delaying him.

End:

• A conversation at the end evil who the Jehovah's Witness really is.
• Through the delinquents and their hobbits and manners, the Jehovah's Witness is convinced to living a normal life and not the life that he was forced upon by his parents.
• With that behind them, the delinquents forgot about the inspector and realised that they cleaned up for nothing but religion.
• They destroy their house further in anger and frustration, until the real house inspector comes to the door.

Pre Production Package:

• Treatment

The story and development, the feel, character profiles, research and inspirations.

• Cast

The actors chosen and ruled for the characters of my major Project.

• Crew

The people chosen and hired to be part of the crew to help me make my major project.

• Location

The set and location where I choose to film my project with exterior shots and interior shots showing around the location and how each room will represent each character and their hobbies.

• Script

The script for the major project.

• Concept Art

The concept are will be provided by a graphic designer who I will hire to help with posters and the the look of the film.

Pre Production Unit Update - Characters and Story

House of Delinquents

THE STORY:

This story is about someone who finds a way to start living an authentic life, free from the oppressive ideals of his upbringing.

Basically he has lived a life his parents have wanted and that their religious views have dictated.  I am hoping to show how that through exposure to others via the plot, he goes on to make choices about how he really wants to live his life.


The Jehovah's Witnesses and The Delinquents:

Henry Javerson
A Jehovahs Witness on a quest to convert the public to see the light of God, in his past his parents resented him for every sin he committed in his childhood. So to earn back the respect of his parents he became a Jehovahs Witness to redeem himself not only as a person but to earn the love of his parents. He comes upon the house of the Delinquents simply at the wrong time and ends up completely dramatised by what the house had to offer.

Kevin Porter
This 22 year old lives for 3 things, sex drugs and rock n roll. Cross this man, and it will be your last, he is strong and threatening if you even look at him wrong.

Derek Damons
The 20 year nerd with a passion for gaming, Dungeons and Dragons and any sci-fi flick thats on TV. He is Kevin's best friend and believes in world peace ever if it does mean mindless violence.

Agnus McBurns
A gothic lazy artist who can't give a damn about the world and what happens to it. She believes that her art represents the world in it's present state. Corrupted, Stupid, Media manipulating, and all around too sensitive. If you ask her to work she won't do it, she always believes in doing tasks at her own pace.

Robert Dickie

This young 17 year boy is the smart one of the group who actually does his homework. He often gets a bit of a beating from his housemates but he has his one and only friend in the world, his pet Octopus named Gary which he slipped past the University regulations and often roams the house playing tricks on the other housemates but only for fun.

Dissertation Research - The Contrast Between Marvel and DC Comic Television Series

Superheroes are all the talk and high in the popular culture food chain,  whats interesting is how much they truly mean to human society today. Not only to the youth of today's generation but to teens to adults as well.  Whats more interesting is how they not just effect us on on an emotional level but how that it's triggered psychologically.

But when it comes to their representation and and contrasts, Marvel and DC are portrayed differently when it comes to television. Marvel television  especially in the late 80s to 90 were always animated but with a huge difference, Marvels shows such as Spiderman and The X-Men where extremely colourful.  As for DC series such as Batman and Superman their stories as well as the portrayal were told and shown at lot more darker.

For example just their title sequences alone:

Marvel's X-Men

• Colourful
• Action Packed
• Loud
• Positive look
• Enthusiastic
• Powerful

DC's Batman the Animated Series

• Dark
• Moody
• Dramatic
• Serious 
• Fearful
• Threatening
• Mature

Just from two examples of TV introductions show how not only his each universe acts but how they show their stories and their sense of justice. Even now as our technology evolves and using real life actor to portray our heroes for todays audience keep that same formula. 

Comic book television series such as:

Marvel's Agents of Shield

• Bright
• Powerful
• Colourful
• Enthusiastic

DC's Arrow

• Dark
• Serious
• Dramatic
• Thrilling
• Tense Feel

But with all these differences can their be also similarities? Well in terms of stories there is always a death involved. Marvel's Spiderman was the death of Peter Parker's uncle Ben and he then became Spiderman. DC's Superman had the death of his entire planet to take in to then later on making him become the man of steel.

In terms of the people, Marvel to me seem to take a sense of realism into the people of their universe, like with the X-Men. The people are concerned and scared over the fact there are people around with un natural powers roaming around where they live and the government are called into question weather they should be cured or destroyed. Now with DC, the superheroes are mostly keep their identities a secret, but when they are called to action the people are more intrigued and fascinated by what they heroes can do. Like with the Flash, the people know he's a hero and know what he can do. Or Superman once again, the people root for Superman because they know they can trust him limiting their thoughts on what his power are capable of doing if he were to loose control.

There are many comparisons to what DC and Marvel have shown us, Marvel like their heroes to be out there and often show themselves to the public with their identities known. Like Tony Stark aka Ironman, who reviled himself to the press and the public. Lastly DC, they are shadow sneakers, masters of disguise, they are know by the public but not as the people they are hiding underneath the mask. Arrow, Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonderwoman, and Nightwing all have these traits in common with each other.

So those are just some into what makes these Comic legends so different but at the same time not so different all together. All these superhero stories have a death or tragedy happen to them and that is primarily how most of them take up the mask and fight crime for al that is good and justice .

Idea Update and Development

Due to the last 1 to 1 with Simon, I feel that the idea I have is too complicated for a major project, although I have my idea I just need to make it simpler. For a story involving delinquents living together in a house what type of story could occur.

There can be a story but it just doesn't have to be complicated and involve looking of feeling like it can be a tv series. My idea just needs a story, a film story, not an episode with a clip hanger. A beginning, a middle and an end.

Then it came to me, there is a main character but he is not a student at all, but instead it's a story involving a religious conversion but reversed. This comedy takes this jehovah's Witness to the house of these rude and dangerous people, but because of these people he comes to released thought he stay that there is no god and the twist is that the only person converted thought the whole film is himself.

The jehovah's Witness's backstory shows him sining with listening to loud music (e.g. rock n roll) and he insert in females, though most of his life and his parents resented him for that and so in order to get respect for his parents and redeem himself from his past sins he becomes a servant of god and tries to convert as many people as he can to repent for what he has done.


Beginning:
It begins with a jehovah's Witness making a journey to this house being his next destination on a journey of conversion and redemption. As the story goes on these terrible delinquents are students at a university house living together but due to neglecting cleaning as well as their studies for that matter an inspector is expected to come to their residence and if they do not meet this inspector's liking they are going to get thrown out.

Middle:
Next the jehovah's Witness comes in the picture, and know their state of mind the delinquents think that the jehovah's Witness is the inspector and try to stall or scare him away with just their hobbies and living space. With heavy metal music that they enjoy, video games, pranks and all of their fighting, the jehovah's Witness begins to realise that all of their sining has not effected them at all.

Ending:
In the end, the other characters find out what they thought was the inspector was actually the jehovah's Witness and get really angry. In return the jehovah's Witness has had enough and decides that all along that if there even was a god in the first place he wouldn't of created such delinquents such as the other characters. He runs away to live his life as he want to.  The delinquents think that the inspector isn't coming and as a result it was a complete waste of time and begin destroying their house again until the real inspector shows up.


This story is still within the realms of a dark comedy and will last 10 - 15 minutes. With the Pre Production Package containing:

Script
Characters
Cast
Crew
Location
Posters
Concept Art
Storyborads

Research on Internet and Streaming services (is it the future of television?)

With the website Youtube hitting the public from February 2005 people had started uploading content that was grabbing the attention of people mainly because it was free and they could access it however and whenever they wanted to. Now today the internet has become a global business to all, from online graphic design businesses to videos being constantly created by millions of people.

Websites such as Youtube gave way to new possibilities to not only in terms of targeting audience but also how to get better connected with them so you know what their audience is looking for.

Right now the internet is used practically 24/7, humanity depend on the internet for work as well as entertainment which brings us to the main website and service in question, Netflix, is it really the future of television?

Since originally my show "Destination For Despicable Delinquents" was intended to reach audiences by a new medium such as the internet rather than television, I thought this would be a good time to do more research into not just Netflix but other internet media services and see how far the rabbet hole goes.


As the company profile states:

"Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 83 million members in over 190 countries enjoying more than 125 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments." Netflix Overview (2016) [Online] At: https://ir.netflix.com (Accessed on 17/10/2016).

Putting this in mind, 190 countries have been targeted with Netflix alone and recorded within human history there are (if you are including Taiwan) 196 countries on our planet. Which means that over 96% of our entire planet has Netflix with these 83 members attached to it. So doing a quick search on a an estimated amount of UK Netflix members I came to this, there are since 2015 4.94 million UK Netflix members. So if I round that up to 5 million UK people and times the amount that a standard membership costs, which in the UK so far seems to be £7.49 and multiply the by 5 million we get....  £37,450,000, so every month UK households would be paying almost up £37.5 million pounds or $42,608,650.00 every month for the company.

Fig 1. Statista, Number of Netflix paying streaming subscribers in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2012 to 2015 and forecast to 2020 (in millions) (2016).

So is it really a surprise that entertainment website services such as Netflix is doing so well not only in variety of media to view but also to film and create their own original content, because from the figures that are showing it shows that they definitely got the money and profit to do it.  So that was just a quick insight into how much a website on the internet can do, and it truly shows how powerful the internet can be when you know how to use it to your advantage.

As for television, the medium is still holding strong but the question is for how long, for me  in particular I tend to use the internet for entertainment more ever since Youtube started appearing in 2005, now in 2016 I use the internet everyday, not just to work and for research but to rely on it for entertainment as well. There are personalities and other people on Youtube that create content that I enjoy immensely and I watch their videos on my break every single day.

So to sum up, is the internet the future of television? By the way I see it, it does seem to be that way although there some aspects of television that people choose to put on, like BBC News or for me it would be a latest episode of one of my favourite shows Game of Thrones. So right now television is still holding and is still highly relevant in today society, but with the internet there is one big difference between that and television. Television is about seeing what's on or what you have recorded, but all the same it's only whats on the TV, and sometimes there is nothing that television  can provide you that you want to watch. As for the internet now, entertainment can be accessed easily and you can choose what you want to watch and unlike television you can watch it whenever you want to. So as the human race seem to do today is when there is something new and exciting they will move on to the next best thing and if television is not careful that one thing might just be the internet.


Image List:
Fig 1. Statista, Number of Netflix paying streaming subscribers in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2012 to 2015 and forecast to 2020 (in millions) (2016) [Online] At: https://www.statista.com/statistics/324092/number-of-netflix-subscribers-uk/ (Accessed on 17/10/2016).

Bibliography:

inforplease.com, How Many Countries? (2016) [Online] At: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0932875.html (Accessed on 17/10/2016).

Netflix: Overview (2016) [Online] At: https://ir.netflix.com (Accessed on 17/10/2016).

Major Project Character development and back stories

Henry Javerson

Backstory: This 22 year old boy comes from a famous pride driven prestigious family with all of them holding degrees in certain talents. His mum is a judge and is driven to work beside her to earn her love and respect. When his mother was in a court room taking on a criminal Henry would often look into her court cases and see who she was up against. From the look of the criminals Henry wondered how on earth they would end up they way they are. So he took it upon himself to study Psychology to reform the criminal mind to help out his mother and become more of a helping set to his family.


Dr Harrison
A schooler at heart and high within the phycological arts and majored in rehabilitation, this man strives in teach the future generation on his profession. He works at the university and comes across the Destination while on a special trip to research and interview the people inside. Unfortunately due to an unfortunate encounter he is to scared and dramatised to go back there.


Mrs Dagmar

This woman funded and created The Destination as a sanctuary for people who are misunderstood and deemed crazy government targeted. She always believed that everyone act the way they do for a reason, they always deserve a second chance, even though if those people done some sinful things in their life. She is also a transvestite, so really she is a man but chose to become a woman for family reasons and of her own free will.

Backstory: In a backstory she had a wife who unfortunately passed away due to cancer leaving him with their one and only daughter Samantha. She became a woman help Sam get over the grief of loosing her mother and soon became comfortable and chose to remain a woman.


Sam Dagmar

Mrs Dagmar's daughter and care taker of The Destination, she is 20 years old. Studied and getting a diploma in human care she looks after the residents and people within The Destination. Cooking, cleaning (when she can), and even doing laundry, she makes sure that the house doesn't become a battleground when most of the time it does. She is quite sane in terms of her attitude, she remains calm and tends to be quite sarcastic, but then again who would when you have to deal with a bunch of crazy people on a daily basis.


Agnus McBurns

A gothic quiet girl who find comfort within the warmth of fire, matches and fire places seem to bring piece and tranquility from the angry and noisy world around her. She is age 15 and can't be reasoned with unless your place is on fire.

Backstory: Even since she was a little girl her parents constantly argued and her only escape was when one day she wanted to find something to occupy herself. After seeing every toy she had already played with she found something that caught her eye. Her mum's birthday wasn't too long ago and so she find on the floor a box of matches. After she lit her first match and seeing the flame she became more calm and found comfort when looking at the flame. That however led to setting her own house on fire. Barley escaping in time her parents saw her as a monster and sent her to The Destination until she was deemed sane once more, she has been there ever since.


Gregory  Smith aka Splotion

Backstory:
When first memorised the alphabet at age 2 he he became an absolute fanatic with the realms of science and technology. At 5 he was already in secondary school as his knowledge was extremely separated from the other children. By age 10 he was already working on government projects to change human society forever. Until one day he had a nervous breakdown and stated working so much that he because science mad, creating weapons of mass destruction, inner demential portals to other planets and more. As a result, the government deemed him to be too dangerous and by order of the court he was sent to The Destination where he was to calm down and be disciplined and not to do any more science experiments. The only thing he was aloud to keep was his pet octopus named Sebastian, his only friend in the world. He is now 16 years of age and has remained at The Destination ever since.


Dave

Backstory: As an orphan Dave has learned to survive on his own and has gotten into trouble so many times because of complicated things he didn't do. Many people saw him as a threat and has been accused time and time again, before then he started being more aggressive even his foster carers started to loose control of him. Eventually he got into fight after fight after fight until he was sentenced to The Destination and found by Mrs Dagmar where he remains at age 19 and somehow learns to control his temper before returning to society once more.



Cindy:
At a young age Cindy grew up in a hunted house with her family, she started hearing ghosts and before long she started seeing them too. Her family started to get worried to the point where they saw her get bullied at school for (apparently) talking to herself. Her tutors say she is totally in another world, her peers say she is almost constantly changing personalities. Before long they found The Destination and left her with Mrs Dagmar to help her come to terms of reality. Here she stays with her weird thoughts and her ghost friends at age 18, weighting for the day she is either cured or has control over her mind.

Pre Production Development - My Pitch and Treatment Package

With my pitch, I kept it very visual as to make sure that not only my tutor but also my peers would understand what I was trying to achieve and make with my major project. Unfortunately because of that some of them didn't understand what my film was, or some of the details that they just didn't get. This was a fault on my part as I was nervous and rushed a little bit on my presentation and left out some crucial details such as, character backgrounds, the plot, and most importantly, the information about my pre production package.

What was going to be included within the package, how was it going to show of the best aspects of my work, how was it going to be done or submitted? All these things could have been told and executed in my pitch a hell of a lot better in my opinion and so I have learned to make sure to read the brief more thoroughly next time.

That was it for my presentation, but now as for my overall Pre Production Package I plan to put all of my work into a book with these chapter headings.

Treatment

Characters

Locations

Concept Art

Script

Episode synopsis 

Cast

 

Crew

Pre Production Unit Development Locations and special Props

Firstly with the character of Greg Splotion, I imagined him having a crazy pet best friend that other people would be freaked out about whenever they saw it. Since this character is a scientist I thought it would be cool if he had a really cool un natural pet, something aquatic, so I thought, what about an octopus.

This is when I had to slow down and think... How would I even consider the possibilities of get a life size octopus let alone finding one. Then it hit me, what if I didn't need the octopus at all, what if I just got a prop of a simple octopus tentacle and thats it.


With research I have gathered There is a company that has built a life-size octopus tentacle and would be perfect as a quick moment of dark comedy.

Fig.1 Tentacle - FrightProps.com [Online] at: http://www.frightprops.com/tentacle-0745.html (Accessed on 11/10/16).


Location examples:

For a short film like mine I would conceder either a big fancy house or a cottage, but somewhere with space where lot of characters can be in.

Fig.2 Middle of nowhere cottages Take a holiday break that's far from the madding crowd [Online] At: http://www.menaiholidays.co.uk/assets/images/Scenics/thumbs/1766x669/xBBP_8871.jpg.pagespeed.ic.JKesJgVckH.jpg (Accessed on 11/10/16).

Fig.3 Magnificent Architecture [Online] At: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d7/4d/0d/d74d0d23e8ea1cdf07a6337097f52b4f.jpg  (Accessed on 11/10/16).

My Cast expectations and Locations

There were already couple of people in mind for my cast for some of the parts in mind. They are mostly some people I have work with before and I amigo get them involved one last time for this creative project I am doing.

Some here are already some of the cast that I had in mind:

Henry - Ben Fleury

Mrs Dagmar - Dave Turner

As you can clearly see this guy can do it all, he is known for playing the woman role in any pantomime





Head Tutor Dr Harrison - John Reding

Classy, smart, funny, these qualities define John as well as this character. The reason I have chosen John is because not only was he really easy and fun to work with but he has a powerful way of speaking not only during his stand up but also when he is acting.


Expectations for the rest of the cast:

Agnus McBurns -



Gregory Plotion -



Dave Smith - Possibility (Shan Rickwood)?

Tall, tough, and a heavy metal fan, this guy may be funny when you meet him but on camera I would expect him to be great as a street fighting, class bullying, rough and tough bloke who gets into all sorts of trouble but beneath all of that anger exterior lies someone who was framed and misunderstood.

Kevin Terrible -



Sam Dagmar -

Destination for Despicable Delinquents (Treatment)

The show I am creating revolves around a young 21+ year old boy who is hired to a big house filled with the most out of control kids and teens in England. For this to work not only would I need a great big house to work in and to get permission to film in but I would also need the right cast to get the right feel to it.

The Feel:

I wanted the feel to be somewhat Tim Burnish but not too dark but more funny and often quick with the timings for the comedy, to be fast paste comedy for me usually executes the best.

With dark comedy turning bad things and situations into funny and liable jokes can be often hard to nail down as most majority of people today tend to get over sensitive of whats on television especially the internet when the audience half the time have complete control over what they think and what they want to say online.

With that however comes fun as the aim of comedy, more importantly from a script, is to make sure there is joke after joke after joke. I originally I was going to aim the comedy based around the style of the E4 Show Scrubs, where the comedy is based around high drama within a hospital.

My show however needed to be more funnier so with this it seemed that the comedy percentage need to be higher than the drama. The show's feel has to be gothic but enough so a high amount of people who band away from gothic horror can still be intrigued to give it a watch. My target audience is around 12 to 30 year olds, so like 6th formers to college students to young adults.

The style I imagine is gloomy yet artistically creative and classy, but when it comes to the delinquents I wanted a rough tough and gothic look to them.

Inspiration:
I took inspiration from dark yet funny shows such as this one, What it's Like Being Alone, a show based around an orphanage where these deformed, mister, and old around weird orphans live and get into adventure and trouble within this one location all within the plot and task of eventually being adopted by parents.

The comedy style is what I want to aim around and the location somewhat similar, I think the biggest challenge to this major project is in fact the location, as I wanted a kind of broken house but not too broken.




Grimborster. (2007). What It's Like Being Alone - Episode 5 part 1 of 4. [Online Video]. 23 February 2007. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFSuVBGKjUc. [Accessed: 4 October 2016].