yes you guessed it, another PDP blog

The 60 minute script

2008-04-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

This script has been a strange one, after settling on the idea in March I have been fiddling with it, tinkering with it, mainly in my head. Waking up at night with the perfect image or the perfect line and writing it down. And now I have written the first 14 pages and have also written the main scenes in the film, teh second act turning point, the ending, the first act turning point.

I showed these to John Foster and he loved the idea, and it seemed like everyone else at the seminar did as well so this is certainly encouraging.

For this script I am really going to adopt a less is more approach and attempt to write every scene with action and imagery, coming into every scene like that hopefully shall improve my writing and hopefully give my film more of an atmosphere. I also intend to give this script to as many peiople as possible to read as that was something I still didn't do with my last script that I said I would do last year.

Non-linear narratives essay

2008-04-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

So I received my essay questions today and chose to do one: Telling a story in a non-linear way can enhance the experience for the audience/user. Discuss with reference to three media texts (either literature, film, television, radio, hypertext or video games). This is perfect to combine with my enjoyment of the current season of Lost, a non-linear text, I am going to write about its changing use of non-linear techniques and also the otehr aspects of the Lost universe as expressed with videogames and the internet. I don't care that I got a good mark with my own opinion in my last essay, this essay needs critical foundation and I need to spend a lot of time addressing the question directly and that needs theory and critical analysis.

Authorship feedback

2008-04-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

The feedback from Dave McQueen was a joke, heavy handed, and didn't feel very valid to me. Apparently knocking me down from a 2-1 to a 2-2 for not including page numbers in a couple of references (references to massive books I had slaved over to read) followed by an indication that essays were not about theory or other people opinions. This is in total disregard to how I have my whole life been told to write University standard essays, it sounds like he wanted none of the knowledge I had gained with my reading and wanted me to use only my opinion. This is crazy as if that were to be the case I would have no evidence to back up such opinions.

Next essay I will try and include far more of my own opinion and will see what happens.

Responses

2008-03-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

After a long while I finally received some responses, mostly they have been negative, in one case it was negative because I actually didn't send off the CV attachment. In retrospect I feel as though most of the issues was not with me or my CV but with maybe the generic nature of my covering letter, and in fact there is reason to believe that with such a generic letter they may not have even bothered reading my CV.

But I have had a couple good responses and after talking to my friend in the third year I accepted a telephone interview with the London Script Consultancy, which went very well and I was offered the job "whenever I was ready to do it" I potentially told him the end of June and he accepted.

Censorship Essay

2008-02-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

The censorship essay has been set and I have begun my research on my question, I am actually very excited about the porspect of this question as there is a lot of scope for me to develop some interesting ideas I have about the so-called 'information age' and its future, and also about the state of videogames and their impact on society. This essay is going to be based largely on my own opinion, but there are still several books I need to read to gain scope on the subject.

The responses about my CV and covering letter

2008-02-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

The responses about my CV were very useful and constructive, I was told not to use all the jobs I've had in my life and only use those jobs related to the job I'm applying for or media type jobs in general. Additionally I am also a PAL leader and this, I was told, should be made such a bigger deal within my CV. There were also lots of little things like positioning my address wrong and the title and the information included.

The covering letter idea I had was to write a large generic covering letter that all I needed to do was replace the company names and I could mass produce it and send it out.

I also have bought this years industry media guide for ideas and e-mails to send off my CV and which companies to do and general advice, so I have compiled a list of people to send it to.

The 60 minute script

2008-01-29T16:58:00.000-08:00

After having written the bible I decided to write an entire outline for the pilot episode, thinking it would be fine to do that episode, I spent a long time doing it and enjoyed the story I came out with immensely. As I began to do work on bringing it out in a proper script, today I got told I'm actually not allowed to do the pilot.

SO instead I am starting an outline of the eleventh episode in our series, but it is going to be tough as there is not so much story in this episode, but it is one that I have worked on and I think there is a lot of potential as it is a turning point within several characters lives in the series.

Sent out my CV and covering letter

2008-01-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

After compiling quite a complete list of companies I decided to send off my covering letter in an email with the CV attached to all the companies I could get to. I also scoured the internet for internship ideas and availability and added those e-mails to the list and also added some other places of interest I found.

We were also told about an internship for 12 months with Working Title which I also wrote out and applied for, and also a couple separate schemes with the BBC and Channel Four.

I sent the e-mail out to about 12 people, I now await the responses.

Writing the CV

2008-01-26T06:38:00.000-08:00

So, today I decided to spend the day working on my CV. I have already got a CV but I guess there's this whole MEdia School template we are supposed to follow or at least imitate so I merged the two and attempted to cut it down to be a page like they said it should be. However I have had quite a few jobs and it is difficult to cut them down and still explain what I did in them. But eventually I managed to get it somewhere near what I wanted, but I wasn't sure about it so I sent it to some members of staff at the media school and to my Step Mother who is very good at this kind of thing being a big head teacher and all. I also worked on my covering letter and sent her that.

2008-01-24T14:08:00.001-08:00

As the final part of the Online Element of the Censorship and Regulation unit, I’ve been tasked with commenting on these photos as the Mothers Against Guns (MAG) would.

We at MAG, although being of a large christian contingent, wish to help anyone affected by gun crime and hope only that the teachings of Christ will aid in helping people realise that gun crime and gun culture is wrong.

We believe that teaching children about safe sex should be completely up to the mother, however this has little to do with our organisation or our aims.

This picture neither encourages gun crime nor discourages it and as such we at MAG have no real opinion on it.

This image is an example of where news of violent crimes has become so-called "art" and as such puts the perpetrator in the same light as a celebrity. We do not agree with this, at least for young people to be witnessing it increases their likelihood to lose a moral compass and think that commiting crime is "cool".

MAG believes that the widespread reporting of violent crimes in the news is bad enough, but when kids are able to download violent videos off the internet on sites such as Youtube.com things become more complicated. Personally MAG thinks there should be stronger controls on such content, especially to children, mandatory use of nanny filters and the like when online.

MAG has no opinion about this poster.

Mag has no opinion on this picture as long as children will not be watching.

MAG supports charity work in poorer countries as well as in the UK and likes the idea of building awarenes, especially among young people.

Again, as long as children are not seeing this kind of image, MAG holds no offical view.

This video is again indicative of lower standards of censorship online and it leads MAG to be very worried that young people could be watching violent films and the disrespecting of women which is often considered part and parcel of todays rising gun culture.

MAG strongly disagrees with this new game, it breads a new level of disgusting violence aimed primarily for our children to play. It is this rising level of violent games that leads to young people being desensitized, which makes them more at risk of being drawn into Gun culture. We heavily protested this being released and are furious that the ban has been lifted on this poor excuse for a game. We hope that no children will ever play it.

Jerry Springer encourages violence on his shows and as such we dislike his syle and the way he bates young people especially into violent actions, we think he may also be inciting violence with his opera show. We hope that all mothers out there do not allow their children to watch such tripe and keep their children away from such violent shows. People do not really act like they do on the Jerry Springer show and children should be well aware that the shows "guest's" behaviours are unnacceptable in real society.

The series Bible

2008-01-23T18:03:00.000-08:00

My group have let me down once again and I am left to pick up the pieces with Will. We seem to be the only ones who give a damn about this series and all the stories involved, I guess this is the difficulty in working with other writers, especially those that don't care too much for the idea.
I think this is my fault a little as I have taken this project onboard, with Will, and together we almost solely made it ours and made it something good.

MAG: Mothers against guns

2008-01-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

The "Mothers against guns" group is an offshoot of a similarAmerican movement, set up by the mother of Damian Cope (shot and killed in 2002) Lucy Cope, and it aims to prevent more young people in Britain becoming victims of gun crime. The organisation calls for people to set up campaign groups in their communities, to help those affected by loss due to gun crime and to see an end to Britain's rising gun culture. Originally based in London it now has meetings and rallies all over the country all through the year.
The initiative uses high profile campaigns to highlight the dangers of gun crime, and to lobby the government to introduce harsher penalties for people convicted of gun-related crime. They wish the government to remove all types of guns (including toy guns) and the largest current campaigning issue for Mothers Against Guns is the wholesale ban of replica weapons.
They are pro-censorship in the sense they believe that new violent films and video games encourage gun crime among young people. They call for stricter methods of censorship regarding these matters, and often lobby for total bans on violent games such as the recent Manhunt 2 and they are especially against the use of "laser" guns in video games and in arcades because they "glorify gun violence".

Authorship Essay

2007-11-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

So today we were set our essay questions for Authorship, Why do texts need an identifiable author in the first place. I decided this time, after last year, to work very hard on my preliminary reading and thus gain a wider and more learned viewpoint on the subject. I read at least seven books on the subject and felt I had really gained the knowledge needed to answer the question fully, having written all my notes out I started pieceing together notes and theories into a workable structure.

Coming up with a TV series

2007-10-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

I pitched the guys my TV episode idea today, a crazy idea based around a very difficult to sell 'high concept' as those in the industry would call it. Thrown out, but I feel as though this idea may still work somewhere down the road, and it is not as if my pitch wasn't liked, it just wasn't right and I am finally learn how to accept such things in my life.

We did finally agree on an idea based around a famous family of Mixed Martial Arts fighters, this story and idea had legs, and the deeper I researched the better I felt about this.

Finished summer project script

2007-05-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

Excitedly the script is done after me and James worked very hard on it for three days in the library, breaking jokes and generally looking very strange laughing all the time in the quiet hardworking library. I enjoyed working with someone else a lot and I think it may well be something I would want to do more in the future.

Results of Audiences script and essay and Summer Project

2007-05-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

The results for this assignment were absolute bullshit. It appears as though I missed out on a 1st in my essay because I didn't include page numbers in all my references. This seems entirely unfair, but I understand the bureaucratic nature of this country.

The results of my script are even more infuriating. Apparently my idea is suspiciously like something I have never heard of in my life. The marker didn't understand any single part of a fairly complicated script and marked it down according to this. Once again picking up on me not giving everything away, something I had decided to do due to it not being important to the characters or story. Fair enough the ending might have been tighter but in the time I had it was as good as it could ever have been. This result has not encouraged me at all, the analysis was contrived, poorly explained, overly critical, not at all positive and even included misspellings.

Onto better things: Me and my summer project group have settled on an idea and I will start top write it this very day. It is quite and exciting project with lots of work to do and fun to have.

Finished 40 minute script and essay for Audiences

2007-04-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

The essay this time was far more what I was used to and I worked very hard to read as much reading material as I could possibly find. I feel I have done a good job on answering the question and I believe, after comparing it to my Images essay, it is a much stronger essay.

The script, after writing two drafts, is clearly the strongest work I have ever written. It is quirky, well-written, enticing, original and has some great characters. The only thing I would say is that the ending isn't as strong as I wish it could be, it feels almost like the beginning of a series. The mystery contained in the film gets no real conclusion, because in the script itu becomes clear that it is not the mystery that is important but how it affects the characters.

Script and essay results

2007-04-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

The essay result was as expected but the script was very unfairly marked. First of all the marker claims that my mother character is still stereotypical, which I highly argue with, there is absolutely nothing about her which is stereotypical. The marker claims that she is "saddled" with all the exposition like that she was married for 22 years, this isn't exposition in my eyes; I mean I don't know how long my parents were married. Further to that ther marker says that the framing device used isn't good, even though in our tutorials she said it was good. Generally the ending let me down as well, which I can accept.

Finished script and essay for Narratives

2007-03-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

The script has turned out much better, the mother is far less stereotypical and is in fact interesting, and the ending has been greatly improved with my main character far more involved. However I still feel the ending could do with some work, but nothing else seems to fit.

The essay this time was far more difficult as it was a very specifically scipt theory based question not a more general theory question. This led me to, I think, ramble in places as I wasn't sure in what direction I needed to go to fulfill the answer best.

Narratives

2007-02-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

The narrative script first draft has been written and I went to a tutorial where I was given an interesting critique of my work. I feel that the tutor, however, cares a lot more for the plot holes in my script than the characterisation and overall theme of the script, which is at odds with the general advice given to us in lectures ("character, character, character"). The plot holes are less plot holes than things that aren't necessary to explain and the explanation of which may well detract from the overall story. So I have decided to ignore those comments.

Her other comments were very relevant. Firstly to make the main character more important to the climax and denouement of the story, and secondly to make the mother's character less of a stereotype.

Results of Images

2007-01-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

I was very encouraged by my results and found the resultsu to be accurate and fair. I just need to work on my ability at wrapping u narratives and making my second act more engrossing.

Finished script and essay for images...

2006-12-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

I have finished the script and essay. I think the essay has turned out very well, I used the techniques learnt from A-level and matched it with a really wide reading of useful books advised by the unit guide, which I found incredibly useful.

The script I wrote I am also happy with, but I'm worried about the ending, my tutor had told me to fiddle around with it as it was not quite right. I found the process of coming up with an ending very difficult. The script itself was quite easy to write as I have written many before.

Images...

2006-11-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

The first term has started and I'm excited. The first lecture outlined what we were expected to do in the first essay we will be asked to write on images, and covered some basic information. I know a lot about the subject which makes me feel rather confident, but I am worried about exactly how a university essay differs from an A-level one. I intend to gain more information about this at my PAL meeting.

The first script project sounds very interesting and broad, I have a million ideas floating around my mind. The idea of actually having my script produced is encouraging.