Thursday 18 December 2014
Wednesday 10 December 2014
Unit 24 Assignment 1 - Podcast
LINK TO PODCAST: https://soundcloud.com/user674839343/writing-podcast/s-NUSex
This podcast is all about screen writing and how you become a writer. I'll be answering a lot of questions that will probably help you out.
1. How do you become a writer & what is it like to work as one
You can take classes to learn the 'craft' but really to get better at writing you just write. A quote from 'Stephen Davis who is a freelance screenwriter: The cliche is true: The more you write the better you get" You need to learn to accept criticism. Working as a writer is very temperamental a lot of people get side jobs like waitressing for example, to be able to support themselves. It will help you out a lot in writing if you know a lot of people. Agents, Producters etc etc. Writing is super hard to get into, you often need entry level jobs, for example a staff writer,
This podcast is all about screen writing and how you become a writer. I'll be answering a lot of questions that will probably help you out.
1. How do you become a writer & what is it like to work as one
You can take classes to learn the 'craft' but really to get better at writing you just write. A quote from 'Stephen Davis who is a freelance screenwriter: The cliche is true: The more you write the better you get" You need to learn to accept criticism. Working as a writer is very temperamental a lot of people get side jobs like waitressing for example, to be able to support themselves. It will help you out a lot in writing if you know a lot of people. Agents, Producters etc etc. Writing is super hard to get into, you often need entry level jobs, for example a staff writer,
2. What is a staff writer?
- Staff writer: Break down scrips, develop plot points, flesh out characters. Working with other writers, bouncing ideas off each other. May participate in first reads and rehearsals with the cast to take notes and make necessary changes to scenes that aren't playing well. Staff writer does not write the episodes but they have some input into the final shooting script. This is valuable experience for them.
3. What is the commissioning process? How do you get an idea commissioned
To get commissioned you need to get hired by a producer or a production company. You would still usually need to be represented by an agent to be taken seriously. When you send your script in a script reader will read the first ten pages. They will then either decide whether to throw your script away or go onto the next stage where someone will read your screenplay through. All of it. Not just the first ten pages. If they get all the way through then you will be invited to a script development meeting where they talk about the development of your script. Then they will enter the stage of the rewrites. They will work on your script and say things like "I think there needs to be more guns" or something along those lines. Basically just changing your script so that it'll slot nicely into the TV programmes that are currently changing.
To get commissioned you need to get hired by a producer or a production company. You would still usually need to be represented by an agent to be taken seriously. When you send your script in a script reader will read the first ten pages. They will then either decide whether to throw your script away or go onto the next stage where someone will read your screenplay through. All of it. Not just the first ten pages. If they get all the way through then you will be invited to a script development meeting where they talk about the development of your script. Then they will enter the stage of the rewrites. They will work on your script and say things like "I think there needs to be more guns" or something along those lines. Basically just changing your script so that it'll slot nicely into the TV programmes that are currently changing.
How BBC do it: The have a submission link on their website where members of the public and credited writers can submit their scripts. They will look at your idea by genre first, then they may ask you to develop your idea further. When it's ready they'll take it to the channel controller. The dialogue of the show will grow and change. It will also be managed by the channel and genre commissioning editor.
ITV you email them your idea, but they only take it from production companies. Not the general public. Then they go through the same process as the BBC
4. Why do you need an agent, names of scriptwriter agents.
You need your agent to help you with the contract. They will help you negotiate your contract and get you a better deal than your last quote. They want to help you to make sure you're not getting screwed over. Agent names: Laya Gelff Agency, Stuart M. Miller, Susan Smith Company.
5. How DOES A SCRIPT GET CHOSEN.
When a script gets chosen there is period of time that always happens before it can be made. It's called the "option period" during this time something called the "option agreement" is wrote up giving the rights to said script to the production company that bought it. Then you will be made a purchase price on your script in the form of a contract. Never negotiate the script on your own terms. Always get an agent to do it. This is why you need a reputable agent. If the project gets green lighted then you get the money and the film starts being made. If not all the rights revert back to you and no one lost any money. You can then chose to option your script to another producer if you'd like.
6. How does a script writer get payed
A script writer gets payed weekly but you get contracted for a certain number of episodes. There is a Writers guild association that establishes minimum payments that a writer must be payed. The more work a writer is guaranteed the less the studio pays. When a salaried writer writes an actual script, they also get payed for that script on top of the already there weekly minimum pay from the WGA
7. What legal issues do you have to worry about as a writer.
The words plagiarism is taking someone else's work or words and claiming it as your own. Libel (Lie-Bull) is making false accusations about someone that is damaging to their reputation.
Writers have to be aware of copyright. If you don't copyright your idea then other people could just say that they came up with it with no legal issues. If someone is making an adaptation of something (Like they're making a book into a film) not only will you need to get the rights from the author or publisher of said book, but if the book was wrote 2nd August 1989 Moral rights will apply to the author too. You would have to make sure that they have waved these moral rights.
8. Here are some examples of court cases
Two women are suing the writers of new girl for stealing the show idea from their television script. The lawsuit claims independent producer, Holly Harter, reviewed the script and advised the writers it would work better as a film. The women allegedly shopped around a rewrite in 2006. They even said that they suggested Zoey Dechenel for the lead role but the producer didn't know who she was. Then apparently the script made a breakthrough with WWE and then their attitudes change towards them and they had trouble getting their phone calls returned. They claim this is when their stolen script started development.
Much calmer and nicer court case apparently the idea for the film terminator was stolen from a famed writer called Ellison. Ellison said it borrowed heavily from his script "Soldier" He eventually received a settlement and an acknowledgement in the movie.
In my opinion there are a lot of high and low points of being a writer.
The high points of working as a writer is being able to see your idea on the screen and having that exciting process from script to scene. You get to be super creative and think out side of the box. You get to do what you love for a living. You get paid highly if you make it. But on the other side you do have to face a lot of rejection and people changing your script so that it's barely recognisable anymore.
When a script gets chosen there is period of time that always happens before it can be made. It's called the "option period" during this time something called the "option agreement" is wrote up giving the rights to said script to the production company that bought it. Then you will be made a purchase price on your script in the form of a contract. Never negotiate the script on your own terms. Always get an agent to do it. This is why you need a reputable agent. If the project gets green lighted then you get the money and the film starts being made. If not all the rights revert back to you and no one lost any money. You can then chose to option your script to another producer if you'd like.
6. How does a script writer get payed
A script writer gets payed weekly but you get contracted for a certain number of episodes. There is a Writers guild association that establishes minimum payments that a writer must be payed. The more work a writer is guaranteed the less the studio pays. When a salaried writer writes an actual script, they also get payed for that script on top of the already there weekly minimum pay from the WGA
7. What legal issues do you have to worry about as a writer.
The words plagiarism is taking someone else's work or words and claiming it as your own. Libel (Lie-Bull) is making false accusations about someone that is damaging to their reputation.
Writers have to be aware of copyright. If you don't copyright your idea then other people could just say that they came up with it with no legal issues. If someone is making an adaptation of something (Like they're making a book into a film) not only will you need to get the rights from the author or publisher of said book, but if the book was wrote 2nd August 1989 Moral rights will apply to the author too. You would have to make sure that they have waved these moral rights.
8. Here are some examples of court cases
Two women are suing the writers of new girl for stealing the show idea from their television script. The lawsuit claims independent producer, Holly Harter, reviewed the script and advised the writers it would work better as a film. The women allegedly shopped around a rewrite in 2006. They even said that they suggested Zoey Dechenel for the lead role but the producer didn't know who she was. Then apparently the script made a breakthrough with WWE and then their attitudes change towards them and they had trouble getting their phone calls returned. They claim this is when their stolen script started development.
Much calmer and nicer court case apparently the idea for the film terminator was stolen from a famed writer called Ellison. Ellison said it borrowed heavily from his script "Soldier" He eventually received a settlement and an acknowledgement in the movie.
In my opinion there are a lot of high and low points of being a writer.
The high points of working as a writer is being able to see your idea on the screen and having that exciting process from script to scene. You get to be super creative and think out side of the box. You get to do what you love for a living. You get paid highly if you make it. But on the other side you do have to face a lot of rejection and people changing your script so that it's barely recognisable anymore.
Tuesday 9 December 2014
Sunday 7 December 2014
Unit 32 Assignment 2 - Storyboard
Then the ITV music logo sweeps on screen and ends the episode
-----------------------------------
People are arguing Woman comes to film it They get angry at her for film-
ing
One of them smacks the camera (but it's now a first person shot of the camera)
The logo sweeps up on screen when the camera is smacked
--------------------------------------------------
The scene starts out in an empty The word music starts to be spelled out using album covers one
field, birds eye view of an empty by one as the countdown theme track is playing.
space
Once the word 'music' has been spelt out using album covers, the logo is complete as 'ITV' sweeps on screen above the word music. A voice over is heard throughout explaining what's on next.
Friday 5 December 2014
Unit 32 Assignment 2 - Sketches/Designs/Collages
Documentary ident idea: Uses post-production to create a fast paced ident. The ident starts out with 'The Ride' logo sweeping on screen then a voice over that announces what's up next (The Ride) and then talks during the ident explaining a bit about 'The Ride' being sure to mention the stars that are on it. Throughout the ident there are flashes different episodes of 'The Ride' the pace is quite fast and then at the end of it the logo 'ITV Music' flashes up suddenly, the ident ends and the episode begins.
Reality TV ident idea: The ident starts out with a shot of some people arguing, then all of sudden doors burst open and we see a camera crew run into the room, the people arguing stop and glare angrily at the camera, then attack the camera, pushing it to the side and the shot is all blurry and spinny and then the logo comes on and says ITV music. Throughout the ident there is a voice over talking about the shows that are going to be on next, the osbournes and stuff
Old music countdown ident idea: The ident starts out of a birds eye view of an empty field. There is maybe the countdown music in the background, that during the time of the countdown music, a bunch of old albums appear one by one on the ground spelling out the word music. Then using post-production the 'ITV' will appear above or next to the word music on the ground. There would be a voiceover saying what's going to happen either at the end of the ident or during it.
Wednesday 3 December 2014
Unit 32 Assignment 2 - Mind map
ITV 4 Music targets 16-24 year olds:
Things that 16-24 year olds like to spend their time doing:
-----
Ident music countdown mindmap:
Things that 16-24 year olds like to spend their time doing:
- Socialising
- Going on the internet
- Watching TV (reality TV shows, wasting their time etc)
- Drinking
- Loud music
- Shopping
- Gaming
========================================================================
Analysis of other music channels:
Viva's ident's don't really make that much sense. The design is pretty simple and it does have the logo in the middle of the screen but it doesn't say anything about music. There are usually shot in a dancing crowd but near the middle of the advert some subtitle pops up saying something random. It's not easily understandable and if you've never heard of Viva then you probably wouldn't be able to guess what this channel would be showcasing. I do like the shortness of it though and it's in slow motion some of it.
4Musics ident's are quite neony which is alright but it's kind of weird the style of dance that some of the idents are doing. It sometimes doesn't fit with the music, the style of dance that they're doing fits with a certain type of music. So people might get the wrong idea and think that 4Music will play a certain style of music when they don't. The flow of the ident is good, the way they dance on and then off screen.
Target audience:
4Music target audience: 16- to 34-year-olds (Source: X)
Viva's ident's don't really make that much sense. The design is pretty simple and it does have the logo in the middle of the screen but it doesn't say anything about music. There are usually shot in a dancing crowd but near the middle of the advert some subtitle pops up saying something random. It's not easily understandable and if you've never heard of Viva then you probably wouldn't be able to guess what this channel would be showcasing. I do like the shortness of it though and it's in slow motion some of it.
4Musics ident's are quite neony which is alright but it's kind of weird the style of dance that some of the idents are doing. It sometimes doesn't fit with the music, the style of dance that they're doing fits with a certain type of music. So people might get the wrong idea and think that 4Music will play a certain style of music when they don't. The flow of the ident is good, the way they dance on and then off screen.
Target audience:
4Music target audience: 16- to 34-year-olds (Source: X)
Viva target audience: 16-plus teens and young adults (Source: X)
ITV target audience: 16-34 year olds (I got this from the ITV website but I think that because of some of the programmes they show (Soaps for example) it would be around 60 year olds too.
ITV Brand identity: ITV are modern and unifying. "ITV needed the new identity to transform perceptions of what had been ITV Productions, and establish the brand as a high-quality global studio – indeed, as the world’s leading creator and distributor of multi-platform entertainment."(Source X)
ITV target audience: 16-34 year olds (I got this from the ITV website but I think that because of some of the programmes they show (Soaps for example) it would be around 60 year olds too.
ITV Brand identity: ITV are modern and unifying. "ITV needed the new identity to transform perceptions of what had been ITV Productions, and establish the brand as a high-quality global studio – indeed, as the world’s leading creator and distributor of multi-platform entertainment."(Source X)
-----
Ident music countdown mindmap:
- Ticking back time to the 40/50/60's
- Filmed outside maybe in a quiet field with a lot of space. Quite a generic background
- ITV logo might pop up in the sky
- Bright colours
- Old album collection
- People dancing different dances maybe
Ident documentary series mindmap:
- Quite dark/Metallic look
- Features 'The ride' logo
- Dark ITV logo
- Shows scenes of an interviewer
- Mainly uses post production
- Shows the behind the scenes of things being made
- Fast paced
Ident reality TV series mindmap:
- People reacting to the reality TV shows flashing back to clips of the actual reality TV shows
- Lever to switch it from music to TV?
- ITV logo quite bright and fast to get people interested
- The Osbournes feature
- Behind the scenes of the reality TV stuff being filmed
- Flashes to exciting parts of the TV shows
#1. Music countdown would be filmed like TCM, mainly using real life. (Cameras, Tripod, Real life props) But also using a bit of post production to put the ITV logo in.
#2. The documentary ident would be quite slow paced using mainly already shot footage. Post production would play a big part in this ident.
#3. The reality TV ident would mainly use post production to put in flashes of the reality TV programmes that will be on there. Like to give people little exciting snippets of the show. There might be some actual filming (camera tripod cast)
Unit 32 Assignment 2 - Production Diary
I started doing my mind map thinking about what kind of things 16-25 year olds like to do so I could get a bit of an idea of how to target them in my ident.
I have a rough idea in my head about how I could do the ident that will introduce the 'best of' music video countdowns. Using old albums from the 80's/70's and 60's that I have at home to to form the letter 4 and then use post production to make the ITV curved font letter appear before the number 4.
Looked at 4Music and VIVA, Viva didn't make much sense and 4Music was a bit missleading. The colours of 4Music are quite neon-y and the colours of Viva are quite dark with bits of bright colour
Finished writing about the target audience for everything.
Did rough ideas for the 3 idents using mindmaps. Quite fast paced action on screen for all of them.
Started my actual ideas for the 3 idents. Did an in-depth explanation as to what the idents would include, did collages of each of the idents with explanations underneath.
Finished the three storyboards for my idents used an online storyboard maker.
Decided I'm going to make the filmed argument reality TV ident because filming is a strength of mine. The ident is gonna be quite fast paced
Had a bit of trouble finding cast to do it and ended up finding some people last minute having to film inside college instead of in a house which is where I originally wanted to do it.
Finished filming, didn't take long. Did multiple takes so I had plenty of footage of the argument scene.
Filmed an extra bit where someone filmed me looking at my camera and then realising there was an argument then standing up and having the camera switch to my camera like a first person view.
Started the edit. Put everything in order, decided the extra shot bits doesn't look great so I deleted it.
Searched for suspenseful background music to have playing at the start as I run up the stairs. Got more sound effects for the ident.
Searched for a tutorial to find out different ways to animate my logo. Decided to do a glitchy type logo on after effects to kind of show that it's just been 'hit onto the screen' as one of the cast members ended the filmed section by putting their hand on the screen.
The animation was quite easy because I was just following a tutorial along. Didn't have any problems, finished the logo animation in about 20 minutes.
Put the animation into my ident at the end.
Recorded the voiceover "Up next on ITV we've got the osbournes then at 10 we've got Run's house"
Was told I need to make just a few changes to my ident.
Colour corrected the whole ident making it brighter as it was just a little bit dark. Then put a filter on the start and end of the filmed bits where it made it glow.
Then made the logo freeze frame at the end instead of just glitching off screen so people can focus on the logo more
Re-filmed the voice over to include the word 'music' after ITV.
Finished and exported my ident.
I have a rough idea in my head about how I could do the ident that will introduce the 'best of' music video countdowns. Using old albums from the 80's/70's and 60's that I have at home to to form the letter 4 and then use post production to make the ITV curved font letter appear before the number 4.
Looked at 4Music and VIVA, Viva didn't make much sense and 4Music was a bit missleading. The colours of 4Music are quite neon-y and the colours of Viva are quite dark with bits of bright colour
Finished writing about the target audience for everything.
Did rough ideas for the 3 idents using mindmaps. Quite fast paced action on screen for all of them.
Started my actual ideas for the 3 idents. Did an in-depth explanation as to what the idents would include, did collages of each of the idents with explanations underneath.
Finished the three storyboards for my idents used an online storyboard maker.
Decided I'm going to make the filmed argument reality TV ident because filming is a strength of mine. The ident is gonna be quite fast paced
Had a bit of trouble finding cast to do it and ended up finding some people last minute having to film inside college instead of in a house which is where I originally wanted to do it.
Finished filming, didn't take long. Did multiple takes so I had plenty of footage of the argument scene.
Filmed an extra bit where someone filmed me looking at my camera and then realising there was an argument then standing up and having the camera switch to my camera like a first person view.
Started the edit. Put everything in order, decided the extra shot bits doesn't look great so I deleted it.
Searched for suspenseful background music to have playing at the start as I run up the stairs. Got more sound effects for the ident.
Searched for a tutorial to find out different ways to animate my logo. Decided to do a glitchy type logo on after effects to kind of show that it's just been 'hit onto the screen' as one of the cast members ended the filmed section by putting their hand on the screen.
The animation was quite easy because I was just following a tutorial along. Didn't have any problems, finished the logo animation in about 20 minutes.
Put the animation into my ident at the end.
Recorded the voiceover "Up next on ITV we've got the osbournes then at 10 we've got Run's house"
Was told I need to make just a few changes to my ident.
Colour corrected the whole ident making it brighter as it was just a little bit dark. Then put a filter on the start and end of the filmed bits where it made it glow.
Then made the logo freeze frame at the end instead of just glitching off screen so people can focus on the logo more
Re-filmed the voice over to include the word 'music' after ITV.
Finished and exported my ident.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)