Pre-Production Evaluation – Bobby Tait
The task set, was to create a drama television series based
on whatever topic we wanted. One of the stages to creating this was to draft a
10 minute extract from any episode we have written. I had many ideas for
creating this T.V. show, and decided to let my imagination run free with
certain topics that I feel I have a wide knowledge about.
Out of all the ideas I had, the action to take would be to
depict the ideas that I feel had the most potential, and carry them forward
into making the show. To pick these apart, I had various categories in which I placed
each idea. For example my idea about a police detective would come under “crime
series”, although this idea was never carried forward, I had many others to
choose from, keeping in mind different aspects of each genre I had to include. An
example of this would, for my idea about basing it on a footballer, I had to
take into account the other players that are also characters, as well as the
name of the club that it was fixated on to be prevalent throughout the series.
The brief consisted of me explaining my influences and
reasoning for picking this idea of a footballer’s drama, called “Kick-Off!”. The
brief also gave information about the topic of episodes as well as the running
order of them, as I wanted to create a storyline than was linear and cohesive
through-out the series.
After the brief was given, I created a questionnaire, to try
and gain some knowledge about how fellow scholars, adults and peers felt about
certain aspects of a T.V. series. I decided to ask them various questions
relating to the amount of time they spend watching television, and if so which
channel and so on, as I wanted to try and delegate my series to the appropriate
channel, target audience and certain aspects of the storyline, for example for
the protagonists to suffer, rejoice or to have learned a lesson from the
episode. This was an effective resource to have as it allowed me to try and
maximise the viewing of the series and brought to the light that the time in
which the series was shown, would relate entirely to the target audience. To show
my findings, I created a number of graph relating to each of the questions, and
pragmatically shown and analysed them in my coursework.
My initial idea of the storyline was written to a focus
group enlightenment to what kind of narrative would take place during my
series, and with constructive feedback, would be greatly enhanced and more
appealing to a more vast but appropriate audience.
Existing scripts of famous and popular television shows were
a great researching device that I used, as it allowed me to see how a
professional television script was structured, written and presented. As I researched
three individual scripts from three different programmes, it allowed me to compare and contrast between
prevalent elements in each script, and annotate adequately enough to base my
later draft on.
Furthermore, the next version of my script held the appropriate
aspects that I had researched and enabled me to cut out any unnecessary aspects
of the original one. After this was completed, further research into watching
and analysing a television drama, to make notes upon various aspects such as
the Mise en scene of the piece as well as focal points of cinematography.
Noting on the progression of my series, another focus group
was called upon, to answer the questions
relating to my series, with given
background and knowledge of the foundation on my series, allowing them to
comment upon certain characters personality and weather they fit with the show.
This was a useful tool to have at my disposal, as it gave the focus group a
chance to inform from a more specific and noteworthy viewpoint. All answers and
feedback were took into great consideration and explored deeply before I progressed
with the Pre-Production stage.
Internet research into the generic conventions of scripts
and screenplays were carried out to enhance my script to the appropriate adequacy.
This guided me to including the correct Font, layout and other aspects of
creating a script.
The third draft of my script had to be a collaboration of
all my findings from my research from focus groups as well as the internet
research I carried out. With this in mind, the focus group commented on the
character of ‘Jamie’, to be a naïve character, which was not the intended
representation, so adjustments took place.
To ensure that the script made sense and was able to be
followed appropriately, the task at hand was to find out whether it would be as
effective coming to life in front of me, rather than just on paper. So I decided
to call on a couple of befriended actors to read out the script and dictate
what further adjustments were needed. This was a great exercise to undertake as
it pointed out certain points of dialogue that needed to be changing, as well
as some stage directions that needed to be added, to be a successful script.
The final version of the script was made by tweaking the
points expressed in the “acting out” stage, as well as final adjustments of my
own that I did not feel comfortable with. For example, a confrontational scene
was taken from the script as I feel it held no significance to the outcome of
the storyline. Thus, the final script draft was produced.
Internet research, peer assessment and other research
methods were substantial when in the process of creating the script, as it
allowed me to learn from various pit-falls and mis-haps when writing it on my
own. In depth research is paramount when writing a script like this as without
it, it would appear to be unprofessional, misleading, or it may appear not to
make sense. Although various parts of the research had to be carefully
annotated and developed extensively before including them, as the information
may be unreliable.
To evaluate my own process, I would have to state that
certain deadlines were difficult to meet, but in order to create an effective
and efficient script, hard work took place. Contrasting opinions’ were hard to
consider, as far as the focus group questionnaires were concerned, as I had to
become completely unbiased, and take into account useful feedback, to depict it
from the norm in order to enhance my Pre-Production process.
