Week 8 was the beginning of our real writing process. Prior to our first draft, we got together and put every idea and detail we had onto one big piece of paper, and then slowly broke down what we wanted to include, what details were important, and most importantly, what was missing.

During the creative process, our biggest struggle was finding a way for an incident to occur that was both funny and nothing that would have any major stakes in the real world (e.g. an actual crime). We referred back to the idea of benign violation (Warren, C. & McGraw, A.P. (2015)), in which there is a violation that breaks a standard or expectation, but with a frame of benignity so that the audience understands that it is comedic and not a real issue. Some ideas we brainstormed included having an incident not dissimilar to the Game of Thrones Starbucks incident, but we decided that the violation was not the level we wanted, and would not be grounds for an actor getting fired of a show. Admittedly, we did attempt to get some starting ideas from ChatGPT as well, however, they were, to put it simply, very boring. 

In the end, we decided on having a condom put into a sandwich that is eaten by a cast member on camera, which would also explain how the incident was filmed. Once this was decided, Lewis went off and smashed out a first draft of a script. Once this was done, we collectively looked over it and decided what we liked, what could be changed slightly, and what we didn’t think fit. After that, we decided that Nia and I would write the next drafts to be done by the end of week 9. 

Having organised the writing roles, we looked to casting. Nia had completed character profiles for what we were looking for with each actor. Thankfully, Chloe had contacts who are Collarts comedy students, and we reached out to see if any of them would be interested in taking part. We also discussed which roles would be best if those comedy students did express any interest. 

Week 8 was one that was very busy but helped us gain an understanding of how to work collaboratively to reach an end goal.