Notes Taken from Week 1’s reading.

I found week one’s reading interesting because it teaches something that is rarely taught-collaboration. Previously (before reading this) my feedback to other peoples creative work has often been too specific/blunt which can not only hurt there feelings and make them doubt what they created, but it can frame me in a bad light that may damage the creative relationship I have with the person.

Some specific notes I took from this reading is below.

• Everything should link to the vision, go back to the start. I think this is important when harnessing ideas, often people want to take their idea (of the idea) in their direction which may not fit into another collaborators idea of the idea and the direction they try to take it. Everything falls out of sync and the creation suffers, like several people painting on the same canvas. By clearly defining what the project is and where it should be taken at the start collaborators begin working on the same thing (adding their own unique flavour) instead of trying to define it and take it.
• Provide questions rather than answers. This idea really stood out to me because it is something I’ve never done. However its very practical and something I will take onboard in the future. By asking questions you keep the initial idea with the writer/creator, you gently push them in another direction without making them lose confidence in themselves and without knocking there idea too much. Often, I now only realise, this technique was used in High School when my teachers would correct my essays, the brilliance behind it is that it got me thinking and kept me confident.
• Give concise notes don’t be wishy washy. This one seems somewhat contradictory to my above point-but it isn’t. I see asking questions as being better for bigger picture creative work. For example, What is the significant behind CEO having a warped sense of justice? If the CEO is a major character that has agency in the story his/her sense of justice would be significant. However if you wanted the CEO to wear different clothes or live in a different type of house you would write it down specifically.
• Use First Person. As it states in the text this is in order to not come off as condescending. You don’t want to be too blunt. By putting an I at the start it makes your thoughts seem subjective (which they are) as opposed to be objective and infallible.
• Don’t Confuse Symptoms and Causes. If you identify the bit that hasn’t been working for you, then the writer can work out how it has been caused. This again falls back to the idea of not letting too many hands mould a vision into something wayward and unrecognisable. Something that tripped up some people in class was the distinctions between Cause and Symptom. An example of a Symptom would be a line that is funny as a one liner but in the context of the script isn’t funny. A Cause of this would be the way the character is behaves in the script before hand. Maybe the character says too many quirky things for this line to stand out? Or maybe the character is too serious, which makes the audience take everything too seriously. Irregardless of what it is, something needs to be changed so the flaw can be resolved. Another example would be Symptom: Scene that lacks in dramatic tension. Cause: No conflict was built up earlier in the story.
• One last thing to be aware about, which we touched on in class, is not pulling a thread that could unravel the whole script. Lets say a producer asks a writer to change a scene, and the writer does, but because they changed the scene they also have to change all of the preceding scenes to give that one context. This is an example of pulling the wool and unravelling the jumper. What should be done is fixing a tiny whole at the start, that gives context to the troubled scene.