Major Project: A Writer's Wit

A couple weeks back the four people who decided to write scripts (Myself, Sam Wilder, Ashley John and Scott) decided that for the visual element of the task we would each produce an interview detailing what we have undergone in this project. In this interview we would talk about The Idea, The Writing Process, What we Enjoyed, Hopes for the Future and Our Overall Experience of the course.

After coming up with the topic we wanted to talk about we then decided on how we were going to shoot it. These interviews would be shot on single camera in front of a green screen which would put us in a location relating to our screenplay (e.g. I would be in front of a tennis court whereas Scott would be in a garage). Though we wanted them to be different we also wanted them to be a part of a series where the opening, cutaways and astons would all be the same.

We filmed over two days, and made sure that everyone who was doing an interview would be able to help out with filming them (e.g. helping with lighting, camera, etc.). The trickiest thing with filming these interviews was getting the lighting right on each interview. Since we were all in different backgrounds we all had to have different lighting and since none of us were lighting experts we had to have some help from Fergus, he would give us advice which was very helpful.

With filming finished, we checked the footage which turned out great so we put it through Final cut before editing the green screen clips with After Effects before going back into Final Cut to put the finishing touches on our videos. Having never used After Effects or Final Cut X this was a completely new experience to me, After Effects wasn't too hard to learn but I did stumble at parts which trying to get the green screen come put correctly. Final Cut X on the other hand I felt I picked up pretty quickly after I got going. I was very comfortable working in Final Cut 7 so after I knew where everything was I was ready to go and felt really at home with the software.

The last few things we had to do were coming up with the name of the series and the jingles that went with it. The jingles were pretty easy to find but we each had trouble trying to find a name which we all liked for the series. In the end we decided to go with A Writer's Wit. This is the name that we all thought was acceptable and seemed quite professional.

This was by far one of the most enjoyable parts of this task. I love working in a team and I felt that together we all worked very well and we all produced some good looking footage which also promotes us as writers as well giving people an insight of what we have done on this project.

  

Major Project: Casting Profiles

Recently I decided what would make my characters stand out more vividly to anyone reading my script would be creating casting profiles for the three tennis club members. Not only would it give readers an idea of who would be playing who, the casting profiles are also an idea of what I wanted my characters to look like.

Toby - Played by Simon Amstell

Simon Amstell is a very popular British comedian, most well-known for his hosting skills on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and writing and acting in his own series Grandma's House. Though Amstell hasn't acted in much I think he'd fit the role of Toby perfectly, he can portray a quirky character quite easily which is what I would really need from an actor who would be suited to this role.

Simon Amstell wasn't actually the first person that came to mind when thinking of Toby's character though. From the start I wanted a comedian to be the lead role in this series as that is what the majority of popular BBC Three sitcoms have, this would also be a great way to get the series noticed. But getting back to the topic at hand Josh Widdicome was the first person that came to mind since he seems like he can play the straight man very well in comedy scenarios, however he has no acting experience what so ever not to mention he doesn't have the same look for Toby as I had imagined.

Bobbers -Played by Blake Harrison

For me there is no other person who would be more suited to the role of Bobbers than Blake Harrison. Most well known for his role as Neil in The Inbetweeners, Harrison has appeared in a variety of sitcoms most of which he has played the more idiotic character and it's fair to say he will always deliver when given that sort of role.

Ross - Played by Terry Noble

Terry Noble is a relatively unknown actor, but is most well-known for regularly appearing in BBC Three entertainment show Lee Nelson's Well Good Show. Since the show ended Noble has only acted in lesser known films and series as minor characters however he seemed just right to play Ross. This is not to mention that this may be his big break, actually having a proper speaking role on a series.

Major Project: Treatments

Writing treatments were never an easy process for me since I have never written one before and to bring all 5 of them up to a professional standard was not an easy task. At first I was just writing as much detail as possible into them without thinking about how they would read to someone else. This was pointed out to me early on when I submitted the first draft of episode 2, the spelling and grammar was all over the place, the paragraphs were huge and hard to read and most of all the stories weren't exactly on point.

To correct all of this I researched and analysed how treatments were formed and written. This gave me a huge insight and showed me what I was doing wrong, I soon corrected this and sent off my 4th episode treatment for feedback. 

When I received feedback for episode 4 I was glad to hear that it was a good improvement over the previous two that I submitted. Knowing that I was on the right path I gave the rest of my treatments the same structure as episode 4 whilst also correcting story flaws which were evident in some places.

I am pretty pleased with how the treatments turned out however I am pretty disappointed that I never got to get feedback on the last two episodes. This was mainly due to me  focusing too much on the script and losing track of my schedule. Though I am pretty pleased with the layout of the treatments and that everything looks easier to read I am now quite anxious about how the last two episodes will come across during the marking of this project. 

Major Project: Script Drafts 5, 6 and 7

Unfortunately I have not been keeping up with my blog for the past few weeks however I have been hard at work and in this post I will summarise the rest of my scripting experience in this one post by recapping what changes were made in drafts 5, 6 and 7 of the scripts.

Draft 5

I had  a lot of work to do in draft 5 of the script. In draft 4 I didn't feel like I had changed that much and that came to light when receiving feedback for it. In turn I put a lot of effort into reworking this draft. One of the more concerning parts of the script was the Toby's dad scenes, in draft 4 I tried to make him this "mentally unstable" character in order to create more comical situations however as this was pointed out to me it doesn't really explain why Toby became what he is today. Toby's reclusive habits come from his father and having his father come across as a "nutter" doesn't add anything to the story. So to correct this I made him a more of a reclusive character who seems reluctant do do anything social, much like Toby but on a more extreme level.

One more worrying thing about draft 4 was the fundamental screenwriting techniques which came across pretty poorly. This included bad spelling and grammar, not capitalising characters and sound, thin scene descriptions and poor character introductions. These mistakes were simply caused by overconfidence in my previous drafts and were simple mistakes which were overlooked. I went through these and made sure to correct all of my mistakes in order to make the script read better and appear more professional.

One last part which need changing to add more comedy value was the appearance of the youths which are now schoolkids. Though I was very reluctant to change the appearance because of the original idea in my head, I decided to make the youths appear younger and more childlike whilst also giving them the appearance of "wannabe gangstas", by changing this it did make the scene funnier and more fucked up which was needed since the tennis club scene towards the end is one of the best bits in my opinion.

Overall with Draft 5 I believe that this is the draft which has made the most progress in my experience of this project. In this I corrected all the mistakes that I missed out on in the previous drafts and made some huge changes to the characters which was needed to make the story flow more easily.

Draft 6

When receiving feedback for draft 5 I was very pleased to hear that the amount of corrections I had to do was below half of what I had to do from draft 4. This meant that I was definitely making progress and the script and story was flowing a lot better. Out of the few corrections I had to do there were some which were still essential for the story.

One of the things that needed changing in draft 6 was the club scene. Though it was the biggest scene which would reveal all it was a 10 page long scene, regardless of the output or format this was a huge scene by any standard. It was my job to make sure that this was cut down as much as possible without affecting the story. This was tough since I've fallen in love with this scene so much and every piece of dialogue in it and it felt like a shame to cut it down, but nether the less it had to be done to make the whole story flow better. In total I managed to cut down 2 pages of the scene, though it doesn't seem too much I had to consider what was going to be included in that scene, I had to take into account the introductions, the crappy tennis game, the punching of schoolkids and everything else including the humorous dialogue which was the last thing I wanted to cut. But by cutting this all down it fit into 30 pages and I'm pretty happy with that.

Another major change that needed to be made was Bobbers' backstory. I changed this in draft 5 but it didn't seem clear enough and didn't give a proper insight into what made Bobbers start up the club. So what I did was include Bobbers' home life at the end of the script where we find out that Bobbers is doing all this to show his verbally abusive father that he can make friends. This also links Bobbers and Toby together somehow since they both had issues as children to do with fathers and friendship. This scene also gives an insight to the audience as to who Bobbers is as a character which is needed for the audience to keep people watching.

Draft 7

This was the final draft that I would receive feedback for so it was key that I corrected as much as possible before hand-in. Luckily there wasn't too much to correct in this final draft, I had to make sure that my spelling and grammar were on point and the ending was cut down and made less dramatic. These were easy corrections to make, I had someone proof read my script for and spelling errors and mistakes before reading it once more myself and edited the ending (Bobbers' backstory) to include one or too more jokes whilst cutting down a few more lines of unnecessary description.

Overall my experience of writing the script has been a crazy one with a lot of ups and downs, but throughout this whole process I have made sure to always make as many corrections to the script as possible whilst understanding why the changes were needed. This is by far the most effort I have ever put into a script and am pretty pleased as to how it has turned out.          

Major Project: Draft 4 changes

I found draft 4 one of the hardest parts to re-draft. The comments I received on the previous draft were mainly to condense the descriptions down yet make them more effective, tone down Toby's dad (i.e. make him less psycho), and make it funnier.

I clearly felt that these points are ones that I struggled with a lot. I sized down my descriptions to an average of 4 lines per paragraph but it was very hard to be as descriptive as possible within those lines. I'm not exactly sure I have done extremely well doing this but I have given it my best shot and if they need changing in the next draft I shall try even harder.
For influence of descriptions I read the Breaking Bad pilot script and the White Van Man script (since it is a BBC Three sitcom). I tried to make my descriptions as similar to these as possible by using these as examples.

Another change that was made was the changes to Toby's Dad's attitude. In Draft 3 he was very violent which didn't fit very well with the rest of his character, in other words his character was too over the top. To correct this I still made him insane but it's a lot more subtle than the previous draft. He still has a huge impact on Toby's life but now he a more controlling and insane father rather than a violent and insane father.

Making the whole script funnier was the hardest factor to include in this draft. In previous scripts I have tried to come up with the best (or most random) jokes as I can write, however it isn't the easiest thing to try and think of something off the top of your head, especially if you want it to be at a high level. I felt that the jokes that I thought about this week were either too random, too offensive or not funny enough compared to the level I have already written. This isn't to say that I haven't added jokes however they aren't as good as some of the others already in the script.

Major Project: Draft 3 edits

Having finished my 3rd draft of the script I have made a few changes regarding scenes, back stories and being more fucked up.

A few of the scenes in draft 2 have been moved around and/or deleted, for example I have now gotten rid of the first scene where we see Toby in his house and replaced it with Toby sitting with Elsie in Marco's cafe, this is now the first time we see Toby as an adult.

As I have said in previous blogs I am now trying to include a moment of Toby's life in each episode (preferably at the start). The starting scene in this episode is taking place at a parents evening where Toby and his father experience a very awkward situation which ends up with Toby's father telling teachers, parents and their children to fuck off. This scene gives Toby more of an in-depth back story compared to draft two as we get to see who Toby's father really is (a crazy person) and how he influenced Toby's life, making him the way he is now.

For Bobbers there is sort of a back story for him at the end but it is not made entirely clear to the viewer. The reason I have done this is because I really want to put Bobbers' back story at the end of the series as the last two episodes start to show conflict between Bobbers and Toby, when Bobbers reaches his lowest point that's where he tells his story.

I have also tried to make the script more fucked up, these more fucked up scene do make the script funnier and my motive for writing these scenes are to make the viewer think "What the fuck is he doing?!" or "What the hell is going on here" In terms of being more fucked up, I have made Toby's dad more of a psychopath, the scenes with him in are generally more messed up. Even when we hear from Elsie what their father did, the impression that you will get from him should be "how is this guy allowed to have children?!" for example Toby's dad punched a deer to death infront of his children's faces, tried to teach dogs to sing, through shit filled shoes from orphans and eventually died in the Cobra Pit at the zoo where he tried to find a good belt (Marks and Spencers just didn't do it for him).

Major Project: Writing the first treatment

Today I started writing one of the five treatments for the Tennis Club series which will be handed in at the end of November. In the past two weeks I created 5 in depth informal plot summaries, each of which averaged between 2-4 pages. I decided the easier thing to do would be to go through those plot summaries and change them bit by bit and make them into treatments. I have never written a treatment before so asked a friend of mine (who is doing a similar course to me) to send me one of his so I can use it as an example and follow his structure.

This means that at the moment I am reading through the plot summary of episode 2, and changing it by removing and dialogue I may have included, being more formal with my language, being more descriptive and finally expanding it to last over 5-10 pages.

So far I am finding this pretty difficult, even though I have the whole plot in front of me, it is not an easy task expanding them. This summary lasted about two pages and is probably my shortest one, I am so far two thirds through it and have only reached up to the top of page four. This means that I may have to add extra scenes (as long as they work) and expand and become more descriptive with the already existing scenes if I want to even reach page 5.

I plan to work on these as much as I can in between submitting drafts of scripts. I may even have to ask some peers who are also doing treatments how they are finding it and if they know an efficient way of writing one.