Month: August 2016

We had a series of table-reads for our current scripts. We decided that our script had some problems. The tension was odd, the characters were not believable, and some of the script progression seemed forced and out-of-nowhere. Some re-editing is needed, but not majorly. The writers are also going to discuss synopsis’s for future episodes.

For the final half-hour the media people (including myself, of course), we practiced setting up light panels. We looked at lighting positions and theories and techniques for different shots, such as “3-point lighting”.

First we had a guest lecturer, Evan Smith. He talked about his work in his production company, which he describes as “fun corporate stuff”. He also talked about his studying life from before, his interests in filming, and how he came to where he is now.They also showed a couple of clips from a web series, “A Little More Oliver Clark”, starring a musical comedian named Oliver Clark (coincidentally my name as well). He also showed us other web series he has worked on, including “playground politics”.

Evan also gave us some advise about production and filming, needing multiple takes to deal with camera movements and lighting, and also gave a good tip about having the person’s lines underneath the camera to help them remember.

After Evan’s lecture, our groups were told to meet together to discuss script deadlines, locations, back-up locations, casting call dates and outlining key characters, and getting started on our 200 word personal bios. However, we only had 30 minutes left of class so little was accomplished. Luckily we also had an out-of-class meeting to think through these things.

 

“The Katering Show” is an excellent parody of your average how-to shows, as Lenny Ann Low (2016) has said. The show is about “The journey of a food intolerant, and an intolerable foodie” as they go about teaching their audience about how to cook fructose-free dishes mixed in with whatever food-fads exist, from paleo-eating to eating a lasagna made from their own placenta to, in season 1 episode 2, ethical eating.

Low (2016) goes on about how Kate McCartney’s uninterested; staring-into-space attitude is hilarious, especially when working off of Kate McLennan’s overly enthusiastic performance. As such, they perfectly show the incredible cheeriness of the cooking show genre, while making fun of it every step of the way. They swear, insult people, answer lewd fan mail that includes “I want to f*** you in the face”, and makes repeated fun of the very food fad they are attempting to replicate. In the “ethical eating” episode, the Kate’s say something along the lines of “for those of us who can’t afford to have principles…” which is quite amusing. They also in the same episode claim they will eat kangaroo rather than wallaby or possum due to the cuteness of the latter two animals, which is a nice little joke on what specific animals we are okay with eating as a culture.

Williams, D (2012) claims that a comedy webs series usually becomes successful because of how different they are to traditional television programs, using mediocre equipment, choppy editing, all alongside over-the-top acting. While “The Katering Show” certainly has over-the-top acting (especially from Kate McLennan), it definitely has a fairly decent production value. Its cinematography is good, and its editing is done similarly to a normal cooking show so as to emphasize its parody of the genre.

Speaking of the editing, there is a strong use of close-ups on the food, the various ingredients, and cooking utensils. Usually there is a non-diegetic narration by one of the Kate’s during these shots. John Rosenberg (2011) claims that this editing can help create a set-up and punch line for jokes. He goes on to say how the use of “coverage” gives the editor the ability to cut away to other characters (or, in the case of “The Katering Show”, the other Kate) or to arrive quicker to a particular punch line. As I mentioned earlier about the web-series, the editing is done with the intention of giving focus to what the characters are saying and doing so as to look more like a typical cooking show. The set-ups are generally what they will cook with or how they are cooking it, and the punchline is usually the reaction they have when talking about it (an example being “the highest source of iron is human blood, but we will be using meat”).

While only one of the resources actually talks about “The Katering Show” in-depth, the other readings were somewhat useful in looking at what a web-series generally does and looks like. “The Katering Show”, however, seems to not follow a typical web-series format, with its good cinematography, editing, and being informative when it comes to cooking. It does, though, have the amusing over-the-top acting that seems prevalent in a web-series.

References:

1. Williams, D 2012, Web TV Series: How to Make and Market them. “Utilising the Web.” Harpenden: Creative Essentials, Kamera Books. P29
2. Low, Ann Lenny 2016, “TV Review: The Katering show – a new recipe for comedy”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 10^th June, viewed 4^th August 2016, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/tv-review-the-katering-show–a-new-recipe-for-comedy-20160607-gpd9od.html
3. Rosenberg, John. Chapter 7 – Genre Editing Styles II. “The Healthy Edit.” Focal Press, Boston 201 p.69

Today we looked at 2 different types of cameras. The first is a basic, easy-to-use camera (the MC50) and the second was the x200, a newer model that was hard to grasp but once in use was very good.

When using the MC50 we did some basic establishing shots and close-ups similar to a “Jake and Amir” episode. It was, as stated earlier, just easier to use. However, it was not great quality. It would have been uploaded here but the video exceeded the amount I could upload onto the site. Below are some photos of us using the MC50:

Both cameras need good lighting and sound, and the MC50 lapel was too sensitive. Obviously we were not given any lighting devices so that made things a bit more difficult when looking for quality films.

The x200 was very difficult to use. Thankfully an instruction manual was uploaded onto the media site, a hard copy handed to us, and even Mr. Bowtell, our tutor, gave us a hand (as shown in the picture below):

Again, no footage to show due to media size, but the quality was better than the MC50, which is probably why we are encouraged to practice with the x200. Even the sound was more balanced. Chances are that the x200 will be in heavy use for the next couple of months during shooting.

 

Today, thanks to one of the media people dropping out, the remainder of the “Get hexed” writing and production crew (including myself) have been re-assigned to other group projects. I have been put onto “Tits up”, about a woman who works in an office environment who deals with general sexism in the workplace as well as dealing with the recently departed. She is also up for promotion as the current Grim Reaper is stepping down.

In this group we decided to meet every Monday after the studio tutorials at 4:30 and every Tuesday after 3:30. The writing group are collaborating in a google docs and the entirety is on a facebook group. Aside from constant discussions about what we all want to do and how we want to it, there’s not much to say. We didn’t even really get a full scope of what we are doing, but we did set goals.

Group Goals:

• The writing students will collaborate on the scripts for each episode
• Each media student will direct an episode of the series
• Have an online and promotional presence before the release of the series
• Create a continuous story arc across the five episode series
• Have a consistency across the episode scripts and cinematography

 

We had a lecture from an experienced screenwriter (Robyn Winslow) who told us about how difficult it is for a screenwriter to get work after graduating. She informed us that we should have some other work other script-writing, like script doctoring or translating.

We were then handed copies of a segment of her 1st draft of a script from when she didn’t know what to write. It was called “Minding Gavin”, a comedy. While she sets up the style of the area very well with lots of little visual touches of graffiti, the dialogue isn’t funny. There are no jokes, and seems more like an indie low-budget drama piece. Its very sad.

The quality of story isn’t the point of this, though. The point was the need to proof-read and get script-doctors to find plotholes and things that make no sense, such as having a pizza appear in it, and Winslow’s script-doctor asked when the pizza arrived. Again, this was only a first draft.

We were then handed a 2nd draft of a different segment of “Minding Gavin”. Again, its very sad and there are no jokes, but there is more dialogue. I started thinking that this may not have been intended as a comedy.

We then saw a 3rd draft segment, which looked at one of the scripts themes, which was the euthanizing of small towns. This segment is very dialogue-heavy. It is a re-do of a previous segment, and has more plot being shown.

Afterwards, we were then handed a statistics report of the 3rd draft and a line breakdown of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd drafts. It is definitely for an Australian audience due to its focus on a small country town. The differences between the drafts is very high, which just shows how difficult it is to write a half-decent script, even with a script-doctor.

Robyn Winslow says that the driving force of a script is the characters, or even just one character. A story is told through them, and it can change or evolve because of them, too. When shooting and directing whatever project I choose to be a part of, chances are that creative differences with the writer will mean at least a couple of drafts, or at least a number of re-writes.