The 60 minute script

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.