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.

Sent out my CV and covering letter

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

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.

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.

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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

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

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".