This week I finished my audio recording of the actors reading out their lines, I also read the actions along with them so its easier to follow and it makes more sense as its only an audio. This will be posted on my blog with the sound cloud link attached to it as its being posted on my sound cloud account. This week I also did my final evaluation for the whole project. I will be ready for the deadline.

Final Major Project – Evaluation

The brief:

• A 3-5 minute pitch of my Idea
• A research portfolio
• A written script/article/story  that is used to complete a media production
• A completed media production in a format of my choice
• An ongoing reflective log that summarises the process and choices I have made
• An evaluation of my production

Outline the idea generation process

• I put my first idea on my first reflective log explaining what I might be writing about. I always had the idea of writing a script for film, TV or theatre but then I changed my idea to fit what I want to express. Throughout the project I was deciding on a place to set my scene given the characters backgrounds and where they could possibly work this idea came from a place I went during a bank holiday Monday. The main idea that a rejected was my original idea as it would be more difficult to write about even though I had the resources but keeping my second idea was more personal meaning that I could write about it very passionately. For future projects I could go into detail my thought process properly and writing my thoughts out in a notebook or piece of paper first.

Outlining the research process

• My first piece of research was the script layout this helped me understand the way to layout a script in the appropriate format, this then led me to researching TV shows with good LGBT representation then writing about them and how well they did it this also gave me ideas of what I could include in my script. The most helpful research sources was the stonewall website as it talks about the history of LGBT and stonewall itself another bit of helpful research was putting a survey up asking what peoples favourite films and genres were which was helpful because I can get an idea of what people like and try and incorporate bits if possible. From this research process there was different things I could research from Script layouts to LGBT rights. The main thing that my research helped with my project was the confrontation monologue for this particular research a watched the coming out episodes on both shows. I tried to focus on primary research but it’s harder to do. For my secondary research I tried to use as many reliable sources using Harvard referencing to reference back to the websites. For future projects I would properly plan out what order to do my research in.

 Outline planning process

• The pre – production included writing out my timetable for the project. This helped me follow a time frame for which I can complete my project in. This included research, script writing and what date I will produce my product and then the due date. For the most part I stuck with my timetable with a couple weeks different. For future projects I will plan in a more organised fashion.

Exploring skills and knowledge development

• During this project the new knowledge I acquired was primarily how to write a script, taking the previous scenes and the characters backgrounds into consideration this also links to new skills I’ve learned for example if the character is talking before an action then also speaks after you would put the character’s name then ‘(CONT’D)’. In the future these skills would help me if I would want to write a script. This project helped me as a writer as I am writing in a different format to a novel or a comic book script.

Comparatively evaluating my final product

• I can compare my work to a scene from a TV show, ‘One day at a time’. The scene I’m comparing it to would be the character Elena confronting her father. In one way our work is similar is that I also chose the confrontation concept as it’s a powerful thing to not only write but to perform as well another thing that is similar would be the year wait. I wanted to do this because it’s a long time if you’ve been through something but it’s not too long in retrospect. One way our work is different is that it is set in completely different places meaning that the character has very different background meaning that the outcome from the scene is different, another different would also be that ‘One Day at a Time is also a comedy but is also very grounding as it talks about serious things that are happening in the world now. A strength in the professional media product that they had time to do a professional recording as they have the set a group of writers and a group of actors, however a weakness would be the way they portrayed Elena’s father but that is for preference as other people like it. A strength in my work would be Alex’s monologue as it really conveys emotion and my actors showed that really well, however a weakness in my work would be that I wasn’t able to get a professional recording or do a screen test with them. With that in mind I would try and plan everything better or at least do a proper table read recording. From the professional product inspiration I would take would be getting people to help with recordings like the film students. If I were to do this project again I would get on with writing my script straight away then work on the research in the background, I would also book actors way before the production of the recording and get the script to them as soon as possible.

The research I will be doing would be:

• Looking at different scripts and comparing them to mine to see what I could improve
• Researching shows that have good LGBT representation
• Researching where my story is located
• Researching the roads (Where Alex’s mother car crashed)
• Researching where Alex’s mother worked (Calke Abbey)
• Researching whats in a script (Character, dialogue, action…)
• Researching LGBT charities like stonewall, looking at how views towards the LGBT community has improved

References:

• Stonewall: Acceptance without exception. 2015. Stonewalls History. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/stonewalls-history
• Stonewall: Acceptance without exception. 2016. Key dates for lesbian, gay, bi and trans equality. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/key-dates-lesbian-gay-bi-and-trans-equality
• Calke Abbey | National Trust. 2018. Calke Abbey. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/calke-abbey. [Accessed 16 May 2019].
• Calke Abbey | National Trust. 2018. Winter cleaning in the house | National Trust. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/calke-abbey/features/winter-cleaning-in-the-house. [Accessed 16 May 2019].
• Google maps. 2019. Nation Trust – Calke Abbey. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.google.com/maps/place/National+Trust+-+Calke+Abbey/@52.7997758,-1.4581055,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x4879fb98b17bdea1:0xf4902ce041d547d0!8m2!3d52.7997726!4d-1.4559168. [Accessed 16 May 2019].

My original idea was going to be a period piece focusing on the American West, specifically the homesteaders and the cowboys during the 1800’s and the conflicts they faced. However I changed my idea and focused it more to the 21st century to fit my views on the world so I changed it to fit what I’m more passionate about which would be the LGBT community as I think there isn’t many shows and film with the great representation towards LGBT people and show’s with the representation sparks conversation in households which is very important.

The first week of my FMP we did the log-line and pitch. We had to present the pitch to the class and see what could be improved.

Log-line: A widowed father reunited with his daughter who came out to him a year ago. He needs to find a way to get along and accept his daughter for who she is.

Pitch: This movie is about a broken relationship between a father called David and a daughter called Alex after she came out to him as gay. They reunite because David wants to try and heal his relationship with Alex. A major drive of this would be because the mother/Davids wife died in a horrific car accident. David was being homophobic towards Alex but her mother before she died loved her more and accepted her for who she is and gave her more respect for being herself. Alex left her family’s house and got a new place with a friend she has known for a long time.

I think this is really important to talk about because in media the representation for LGBT characters are really poor and not done well as they either get a terrible story line or they get killed off as soon as they come out. This story is really important because everyone has different coming out stories and its really important to give the LGBT community a positive view and thing do get better no matter the situation.