DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
30th October 2017- IDEA DEVELOPMENT
We started gathering ideas on what we wanted to create for our show, sharing ideas and landing on the idea of a panel/quiz show with a 80's style. We started coming up with sections for the show such as the pre-recorded footage being swede films for a round of guessing what the films are. We also distributed roles, myself gaining the roles of floor manager, camera operator, writer and also doing pre-production. I also, with Chloe, completed the risk assessment, knowing the location we are filming in and being able to risk assess the location to the highest of standards. Many of the work today was gathering ideas and coming up with a colour scheme to introduce into our show.
31st October 2017- RESEARCH
Today I drew out the floor plan of the studio, drawing where the cameras would be placed and where the desks would be. I worked alongside Katie and Ensor in set design to make sure that their layout was the same as mine in the design process so they didn't clash against each other. I also worked with them on the logo design, giving my opinion on their logo design and their colour scheme, sharing my own ideas with them that I believed would work. Discussing this with them helped me plan out the layout on the floor plan to the best understanding as possible, making a key for all of the shapes shown on the floor plan so it is easy to understand. When I wasn't doing this I helped Chloe with the kit list and the time schedule and gave my input in the budget that Byron was working on his self.
21st November 2017- RESEARCH INTO LIVE SHOWS AND PRESENTATION
I dived into research of live shows that are only based on YouTube, trying to gather information on their characteristics and contexts that they use throughout and what differences they have against each other. I also wanted to understand the differences between YouTube based shows and TV show, being able to gain a feel on the differences and similarities and what we could use on our own. Another thing I did was creating the presentation, gathering all of the information and putting it together for the proposal we wish to do soon, having all of it at our disposal in the proposal.
22nd November 2017- RESEARCH ESSAY
For this project we were presented with creating a live show that is approximately fifteen minutes long, my group deciding on creating a quiz/panel show with multiple rounds to entertain the audience of 15 years old and up, following the distinctive age restrictions of 15+ rated films with two teams of two. We wish to make it have a modern set up but with a 70's colour theme, choosing the colour scheme of blue, brown and orange overall to create this style and having the questions based on TV shows and films. When delving into research to find out what was similar to what we wanted to create, we split and analysed TV panel shows and YouTube panel shows as we are trying to style the video to YouTube standards.
To discover what kind of panel or quiz shows already exist on YouTube, we went ahead and found some shows that already exist on YouTube that aren't also aired on TV meaning that they are specific to YouTube. We wanted to research into these shows to show what they had similar in their techniques and styles and what they do differently to each other and how they are presented differently to the audience compared to TV shows. I wrote a research essay about the characteristics and context of live shows with the research we have already carried out to use which will help us design the live show how we wish for it to be created.
29th November 2017- POSTER DESIGN, PRINTING AND TIMING
Myself, Chloe and I started designing a poster for the show to promote to the audience. I went in with Byron and Ines to help direct Ensor in the photographs for the poster, trying to make it look professional. I sat with Ines and Chloe, discussing the poster and starting to think of the text to go onto it, myself writing down the information on the poster meanwhile of Byron making an email for the show to put on to the video. We tried to make the show look professional but fun, wanting to grab the attention of the audience as much as we possibly could so they would apply to be a contestant on our show.
Along with this I sat with Byron to come up with a rough timing schedule or the show to make sure the layout of the show would reach 15 minutes. We worked out the average amount of time for each round and how long the introduction and outro should be. We also discussed the pre-recorded footage, making sure to work out the average length and take that away from the overall length of the show to work out the amount of time for the rounds we wanted to make. Working out the rough timing of the show will make it easier for when Ensor writes the script of the show, being able to use it as a rough guideline for how long the script should be and how many sections there will be in the show.
Myself and Chloe on the 4th December printed off the posters and stuck them around college in locations that people would see them. The posters were made to promote the show to gain people's interest to being a contestant. We placed them in the canteen, as that is where most students go for lunch as would see the poster, and next to printers in the Arts House. We also created an email that we put on the poster, allowing those to contact us that would be interested in being on the show. We also plan to create an email for our tutor to send to other tutors to promote the show and gather more interest than we could gather on our own. I also went down to re-pro graphics to see the prices for printing the posters, finding the information in the booklets outside. The biggest size that they print in is A1 and the smallest being A5. We double checked the prices, two pieces of A2 costing £10 overall. We will be discussing the prices over the next few days and deciding how we should print them to make sure they suit the audience and are visible in the background.
5th December 2017- CREDITS AND MEETING ON DEVELOPMENT OF SHOW
We carried out a meeting this morning where we discussed the swedes, coming up with dates that we could film the swedes as we would need to focus on creating them. By planning out the dates to record the swedes it keeps us on schedule for the project and to help us understand where we are with the project currently. During this conversation we also covered the swedes and came up with ideas, basing them off a charade style and trying to add comedic value. Although we all agreed on the chosen films, putting stars next to the ones we will be filming, we did have some disagreements on how easy or hard they should be to guess. From last year we filmed some swedes, myself and Chloe suggesting to use those to reduce the amount of time being used to film them but Ensor and Byron disagreed, all of us agreeing to use them as back ups in case any others fail nearer the time. For me the most important part of this meeting was to discover the differences in our ideas and thoughts, myself now feeling after the conversation more informed on the overall idea of the swedes and how they wish to present them to the audience. There was many trip ups throughout the meeting, some of us having different ideas but working together to come up with a better conclusion overall, all of us being able to understand the other opinions and how to apply them to the situation by coming up with a compromise. We work well as a team because of these factors and makes it easy to get back on our feet and push the arguments aside to produce the show.
This meeting was important to the whole group to understand where everyone currently is with their individual paperwork and to discuss any changes such as the swedes. Throughout the meeting we discovered we were up to date with what we had planned to complete by this date, allowing us to discuss the swedes in greater detail and better comfort. Our new action plan from this meeting is to gather contestants for the show, after putting the posters up from yesterday, but also to gather set pieces, write the script, produce a questionnaire and to get the costumes. By discussing these topics we managed to discover who would be carrying them out from our roles and where we could help out with others, sharing the work and being able to understand each others issues and developments throughout the project, being able to share our work and gather different opinions. Knowing the future plans we split into our own work, Ensor researching music, myself and Chloe doing the credits and all of us working on the swedes as a collective as mentioned above.
After the group meeting I went ahead and started creating a credits sequence with Chloe's help so we knew what we had to write down at the end of the show and how long it would be to apply into the length of the pre-recorded footage that we need to gather. I also started this as Ensor started writing the script, needing to know what everyone's roles are as they may be applied throughout the show, especially for the guests. This is an element of the show that will be needed and discussed in our next meeting to discover a suitable length of time for the credits that wouldn't outrun the rest of the show and fit in the 15 minute length mark for our show. After myself and Chloe found the credits suitable and correct, Chloe re-wrote the credits on the computer to share to the rest of the group, allowing them to see the work I had done and what was left to do, being able to tick them off the check list and continue on with more important documents.
11th December 2017- AUDITION PREPARATION, POSTER RE-DESIGN AND EMAIL FOR ADVERTISING
For the three hours of Monday we sat down and planned out the times for the auditions as they weren't originally on the first poster, us discussing times that would fit those around the college to come and audition before re-designing the poster and sending out on social media. This was brought up in our own group chat and there was many issues between the group about the planning which we decided to resolve today. Whilst Ensor was re-designing the poster along with myself, Chloe and Bryon providing him with the correct information, Ines sent out emails to the college to put it up on their social media before sharing it to other locations. Chloe and I then designed a questionnaire with the input of the others in the group, deciding that we should gain some audience research about the show we wish to create, trying to understand the audience we are aiming our show at.
With the argument the night beforehand we all knew the issues and worked together to resolve them, getting rid of any tension from the night before and working around the issues or finding a new way of presenting our ideas to each other. We checked through the issues and fixed them in the ways I discussed above, being able to see each other's issues although some were stubborn in their own views, making it hard to show them why it should have been different to what they wished it to be but managed to get it through to them.
Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TNC76FW
12th December 2017- AUDITIONS
We held our auditions in the studio as presented on social media and on the posters, all of us waiting for those to come and audition. We needed four people to be on the show and had four auditions, us explaining the show to them and asking why they were interested to be on the show. After they left we split the four onto teams and wrote down their names, knowing that we have Harry and Joao for one team and Moni and Ben for the other. With the auditions we got to know their personality and figured out if their chemistry would work together on their teams or even to work along with our host, Ensor, to bring the correct level of comedy to the show. All of the contestants all watch films and were interested in the show, being happy to appear in our show.
8th January 2018- QUESTIONNAIRE AND TARGET AUDIENCE
From the questionnaire we could confirm that our target audience of 15-20 as our main target audience which was what we selected as our target audience before hand. With the knowledge of our target audiences age, we can alter the show to fit more to them and work with what differences they want in the show. For interest we also asked their gender, learning that many of the audience were male although this will not affect how our show is targeted, it still being aimed for both males and females.
Many of the responses discussing what they would like to see on our show was about different games and having fun which is the main premise of our show, allowing us to continue using this idea to entertain the audience. Another thing we confirmed was that the audience would like to see 3 to 4 rounds in the show, allowing us to alter slightly as we were planning to do 3 rounds and will most likely stick to that pattern but shows where the audiences attention span sits. Along with this, when we asked if they watched quiz shows most of our responses were that they sometimes watch them which shows that it depends on the host and the feel of the show, something we will have to keep in mind.
One thing that didn't fit our 80's theme was the set, many of the responses liking the set of 'On The Spot' by Rooster Teeth which is more modern and casual than what we wanted to represent. With the understanding of what the audience want to see and with what shows they prefer such as QI, we are altering our set to be more modern and abandoning the 80's theme to fit the audience as we are currently having issues with the 80's theme and decided it would be more fitting to adjust to the audience.
The results of our questionnaire were helpful as they discussed what we needed to think about and what ideas would work for our design. With the results given we have learnt that the target audience isn't interested in an 80s theme like we have planned so we are changing our plans of set pieces to make it more modern and to fit the audience better to get better reception from their attention.
9th January 2018- CHANGE OF SET AND THEME
With looking at the responses on the questionnaire we realised that many of the results didn't fit to our 80's theme and that the audience wanted to see something more modern. As a group we had a discussion about the issues we had been facing about the TV show and it's theme and we have decided to change our set pieces. The show will stay the same but as a group we have decided to make the set more modern as many of the responses liked the set of 'On The Spot' by Rooster Teeth which is more modern and casual than what we wanted to represent.
Although in 'On The Spot' they don't have tables for the guests like we wanted to create for ours, the layout of the guests and the hosts work well. In this show they need to stand up to do forfeits for different sections of the show, this layout giving the availability that we won't need for our own show but shows that they have planned their layout in advance. With seeing what the audience preferred for set pieces we all agreed on going with this simplistic layout and to abandon the 80's theme, which is more modern and casual than what we wanted to represent beforehand but with the understanding of what the audience want to see and the issues we have been facing with an 80's theme, this seems like the most viable option.
This meeting was important to the whole group to understand where everyone currently is with their individual paperwork and to discuss the change of the set to something we could all agree upon. After the meeting we all feel much better and more confident in the show as many of our issues were relied on the set, changing the set allowing us to go with something more simplistic and professional than having to stick to a theme. Our next plan of action as a group is to rehearse, get our host to practice the script and to set up the layout of our show to allow me to do the lighting for the show. We discussed what technical stuff we would have to practice such as the fades to the swedes and back to the studio but can be practiced in a rehearsal. We went into the studio and ran through all of the elements of the TV show on the technical side, putting out the set and trying to understand how the lights, communication headphones and sound would work.
