Thursday 28th Lesson Plan

Today we are filming the second episode of our web series. I'm interested to see how the writing team have changed the script in style and comedy, and hoping that this script is better than the last. Hayden and I are now cinematographers, I hope this will improve things so that we can now get a better looking, more professional series. With the new addition of the boom mic I have high expectations.

Wednesday 27th Rehearsing

Today our group reviewed the lines for the episode we will be filming tomorrow. It was good to work with everyone properly and professionally and allowed me to experiment with different ways of saying my character's lines. It also allowed me to learn them better whilst working with my group so our next shoot should be more professional. It's just a shame that all of our cast couldn't be there to rehearse.

Lesson Plan Wednesday 27th

Today we are going to rehearse our lines for filming tomorrow.

Script for Episode Two

Here is the script for the first episode of Detention Deficit, written by James Walker:

Detention Deficit - Episode Two ‘Trapped’ Script

Starts off with everyone sitting down at their desks, Sonny starts talking to Keith

Sonny: keith. we’ve been sitting here for 15 minutes now. why haven’t you annoyed me yet?

Keith: (looks frustrated with sonny) I'm pacing myself

Sonny: so, you’re going to annoy me in a little while instead

Keith: no. you ignoranus

Sonny: (laughs)

Vince and valerie start talking over sonny laughing

Vince: what did you call him?

Valerie: ignoranus, what the hell have you been smoking in your crack pipe.

Sonny: crack (continues laughing)

Pier: guys, i’ve nailed it. i have nailed it (bangs book on desk)

Keith: sorry, but am i going completely mad? (raises voice)

Valerie: going?

Sonny: you’ve been a patient at the fucking luni-bin for a while mate

Keith: can i just explain how im pacing my. fucking self

Sonny: well, it happens

Pier: what

Sonny: he’s annoying me again

Keith: fuck you guys

Pause for a while

Vince: enlighten me keith

Keith: i’ve left my redbull outside the door. so i’m only allowed some every 30 minutes. it should help me sleep. hence, why i’m pacing myself.

Everyone stares at him

Vince: you didn’t enlighten me

Chris: really. (everyone stares) how’s it working out for you. that’s a good idea. good little system. pacing yourself. i do the same for when i play guitar. i don’t want to overwork myself, you know.

Everyone continues staring, silence

Sonny: Who. The. Fuck. Are you? (Shocked face)

Chris: I’m Chris, pleased to meet you.

Valerie: why are you in detention then, did you kiss the teachers arse too much

Pier: you do seem the type that would stay out, if i’m honest

Chris: i chewed gum in class.

Vince: i’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe

Pause

Sonny: wrong moment vince

Vince: sorry

Pier: (speaking to chris) is that all

Chris: yeh, nothing really bad. why you in detention then?

Pier: if i told you, i’d have to kill you

Fade out

Keith and chris are sitting together

Keith: thanks for thinking my idea was good by the way. these guys don’t appreciate me.

Chris: that’s alright. actually. it’s half past now. you want me to go get your red bull from outside?

Keith: (excited voice, slightly nagging) oh yes please. that’d be great. (laughs) if i didn’t have that. i’d probably los the plot. have an axiety attack or something.

Chris: that’s okay, i’ll go get it

Chris goes to open door, but it doesn’t open

Chris: uh, guys. the door isn’t opening

Keith: What!? (loud, going out of control)

Keith starts having an axiety attack, shaking his shoulders. sonny walks up to him and punches him in the face. he falls onto his chair.

Sonny: i am not going through that shit again

Valerie: the less of that the better

Sonny: Don’t talk to me.

Valerie: Screw you sonny!

Chris: What the hell is wrong with you?

Sonny: trust me, you’ll thank me later

Vince: he is a crazy, moonstruck hound junkie. he needs to be controlled

Pier: (Talks to Chris) Did you say the doors locked?

Chris: Why else would hound junkie have gone fucking mental

Sonny: you’re learning

Pier: so, i’m trapped here? (looks worried)

Chris: yes. we all are

Sonny: that’s alright, pier will think of a plan

Pier: (awkward laugh) yeh. sure. i’ll think of something

Valerie: what. is your mind blank?

Vince: what about your amazing idea earlier

Pier: i’ll think of another one. that plan isn’t well suited for this type of escape

Sonny: type of escape...(interrupts)

Pier: stay the fuck out of this sonny. i’ll think of a plan. just give me a minute to gather my thoughts.

Fade out.

Fades in - 20 minutes later

Chris: it’s been ages. a teacher hasn’t even come and checked up on us.

Sonny: they don’t. teachers. they’re quite happy to just leave us here to rot. we’re trash to them. we’re the ones who fuck the system. and when your in here, your trash too.

Chris: i’m not trash, i’m a good student.

Valerie: no your not. you’re a fucking criminal.

Vince: i don’t see what’s so special about rugby balls anyway. wilson this and wilson that. basket balls are better. i could have a good conversation with a basket ball

Everyone looks over at Vince

Chris: what are you talking about?

Vince: when we’ve been driven to madness. i wanna know who my best friend will be

Chris: and you chose a basket ball?

Vince: Yeah.

Sonny: suppose they got a nice tan. just don’t impregnate it, might have loadsa golf balls rolling about.

Vince: you don’t understand. you’re not ready for the truth

Chris: i need to get out of here, any plan yet?

Pier: i can’t think. i’m lost. i’m lost.( hangs his head in shame, crying)

Sonny: every single fucking day, you think of a plan to escape. every. single, fucking day. are you telling me that the one day we need to a plan, you can’t think of one?

Pier: i’m sorry (wails) i’m lost

Sonny: you can do it, think

Pier: i can’t

Sonny: yes you can. ( stands up and grabs piers head) use your head!

Rams Pier's head into the door

Valerie: great. now what?

Chris: we’re trapped

Sonny: fuck sake, stand back, i’ll get the door open

Sonny kicks the door really hard, nothing happens

Chris: we’re screwed.

Pier: (wakes back up) uh, what happened

Sonny: call a doctor

Pier: sonny, i’m fine, just got a fucking bad headache.

Chris: not surprised ( murmurs)

Sonny: not for you dipshit

Valerie/chris: who

Sonny: for me. i think i’ve just broken my leg

End Credits

Detention Deficit Second Teaser Trailer

Detention Deficit Teaser 2 from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Class Feedback of Episode One

Positive:

Good Opening Sequence x 2
Good establishing shots x 2
Good sound track
Milk shake shot good
Confident Characters
Well acted in places x 3
Good range of shots

Negative:

Tried way to hard to be funny
Girl isn't good actor
James way too extreme
Sound level not the same
Out side shot - flashback - needs to be clearer
Shots when characters look into camera don't work
Music cuts too quick
Way too long x 2
Too much swearing x 3
Not bleeped properly x 3
Alex's character changes too much
Shots look studenty
Should close up on cans
Too angry
Flashback too repetitive
Nobody does detention in a computer room
Characters kinda dull
Credits too fast
Door scene does not make sense x 2
Pier isn't French enough
Too much fade out
Music too loud made them jump x 2
Unrealistic Characters

Monday 25th Show Project Meeting

Today we were told that we had more time than we previously thought to complete our episodes. This was a great relief to our group as we simply couldn't see how we were going to get the second episode finished in time for the current deadline. The condition of this was that we had to produce another teaser trailer for the episode. We instantly went about making this trailer and worked better, faster and more effectively than we ever have before. In the space of about two hours we produced something that I think has the wit and charisma of our whole first episode.

I have also now made us a YouTube account so that we don't always publish on Vimeo. YouTube is a far more popular site and it also means that anything we publish on our Facebook/Twitter pages will count towards our view toll (which didn't happen with Vimeo).

Episode One Censored

Detention Deficit: Episode ONE from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Friday 22nd Finalising

Today we finished the first episode of our miniseries and put it up on Vimeo, along with updating our Facebook and Twitter advertising as such. In the lesson I edited the footage to a finished state and then Hayden placed effects over it to make it less rough and more aesthetically pleasing.

Unfortunately due to previous arrangements I had to leave before Hayden had completely finished and never got a chance to double check the censored version of the video. I had already edited the title sequence so that it covered up the swearwords on the books. However I was saddened to see that Hayden had accidentally missed a couple of curses when editing and hadn't bleeped them.

During the editing of the episode Hayden and I wanted to add bad techno music at the point where Hayden's character (Keith) starts to rant at James's character (Sonny) towards the camera. We thought that this would emphasise his hyperactivity and aggression towards Sonny. We got the idea for this from the TV show 'Spaced' where the character Tires does the same thing. However, even though I thought that it would make the episode a lot more effective James didn't like it, since he was the director we couldn't use this method. However I still feel it would have added much better value to the episode.

Project Summary

When we started the project we were all allocated different roles. It was a whole class project, and everybody had their own individual role to play. Generally each person had one job. I was chairman, along-side Tim. We were chosen as these roles by a whole class voting nomination. This voting system played a big part in the first couple of lessons. We chaired the class using order, we all came up with ideas and gave input and tried hard to make sure everyone has their say. Unfortunately some people are not willing to voice their concerns in front of the whole class as much as others. Due to this some people were inevitably left with their wishes not met.

After only two days of having class meetings like this the teachers decided to split the whole class up in to two groups (or 'production companies') each of these group was set the task of creating their own mini-series and using the other group as motivational competition. At first I was very skeptical about this as I found that we were working together well beforehand, and felt that even though things weren't going perfectly I was learning from all things that went wrong and was able to adapt due to knowing my mistakes. I also felt a bit cheated out of my chairman position, I felt that I had been elected by the class, therefore I had a job to do and when they took that away I felt I hadn't yet given it all I could offer.

However, I quickly came around to the idea of this 'two group' project. I found that it enforced the necessity to work everyone to their hardest, almost doubling the workload for each person. What happened in the whole class project where everyone had only one or maybe two roles, became each person having at least two, and often more. This was worsened by the fact that our group was actually the smaller of the two groups, and the other group had two people more than us.

We quickly set about working together efficiently, making a 'Blogger' website to post information and work about our show. Hayden went about customising and editing this to suit the atmosphere of the show. Subsequently we made Twitter, Facebook and Vimeo accounts as a increasing marketing campaign. The whole group worked on these but they were mainly designed by Hayden and myself. By this point in the project we had scrapped the 'chairman' leadership and had opted for an equality approach.

James wrote the script almost single-handedly whilst Matt H designed the title sequence and we voted Phillippa as Production Manager, which induced a lot of paperwork on her part that I did my best to help her out with when not too busy with other jobs.

Eventually we were given a deadline and we organised ourselves a filming shoot. We shot the first episode, our teamwork was very good when filming, despite some disputes about trivial things we worked perfectly as a team. The only let down was when we were interrupted by a teacher and sent out of the room, despite having checked and rechecked our booking of that room. It wasn't our fault but it was a good learning experience that it is very difficult to rely on information acquired from third parties (in this case, Reception).

After filming we set to editing, I edited most of the footage whilst Hayden added effects such as beeps to the video to censor it and adding sounds and zooms to it. The most successful bit of our final cut of the video was actually the title sequence. It looks brilliant visually and the sound goes just brilliantly with it. So I take my hat off to Matt H and Philippa who designed, edited and got rights to the music for it.

As for the finished result I like it, but I still think that it feels far too 'studenty'. We need to tighten up the notches for the next episode, however this is growing ever more difficult as we are constantly being pressed for time, and being forced to squeeze out another episode rather than giving each one the time care (I think) it deserves.

Next is to log audience feedback...

Thursday 21st Editing

Today I have been editing the footage of the first episode of our show. It is coming along quite nicely, Hayden wasn't here for most of the day, so I got a chance to edit alone, it was quite refreshing to be able to edit alone, I edited the scene that introduces the character Vince, and the 'flashback scene'. I also printed out the last three Model Release Forms that I designed for Philippa the Production Manager.

Tomorrow I will have to finish editing the episode, I will have to work very quickly, but I am pretty sure I can finish it in time to release the pilot (at 7pm).

Detention Deficit Logo

Designed by Matthew Hornby

Wednesday 20th Editing

Today we spent the majority of the lesson editing footage, however before we did this each of our groups went into different rooms and wrote down the problems each was having with their group. We were told to discuss these between us, and come up with solutions to prevent them from continuing to be problems. Our group had the problems:

• We don't listen to each other enough.
• We don't trust each other enough.
• We need to have better group organisation.

And I decided we should:

• Stop dumping all the writing work on Philippa.

We came up with several ideas to overcome these problems, we decided that not listening, and having bad organisation were linked to each other, so we all made the choice to put in that extra effort when pitching ideas for everyone to listen to each other.

Trust is something that will have to be earned to be given, but as our group has been producing good work from every single member so far we didn't see this as being a large issue.

Finally, unless I am overcome with editing, like I often was today, I think it would be a good help for our team if I carried on assisting Philippa with the forms every now and then, to ease her workload as she does have many to write/fill out.

As for the editing, I am pleased to an extent as to where it is going. The things I am not too pleased about are how it is still looking very (for lack of a better word) 'studenty'. The quality just isn't cutting the high expectations I had, but I'm hoping with more clever editing we can make it look great. Editing is also a very time consuming process, for some, more than others. I am editing with Hayden, but I think sometimes we disagree a bit on the fact I would like to just get a basic edit finished, then go back and clean it up afterwards, where as he likes to touch things up as he goes along. A minor problem really as working together, things seem to be going just fine.

Finally, today we were also informed that we would have to change our series so that it is suitable for an 11+ audience. This caused immense frustration among our group, but I think was a tactic to imitate the demands of a real media company, suddenly changing their ideas.

Ways of going about this:

• Re-shoot footage.
• Dub footage.
• Replace inappropriate words with beeps/silences.
• Cut footage differently to remove scenes with swearing.

We will have to decide among our group tomorrow (probably with a vote) which one of these options we will be choosing.

Wednesday 20th Lesson Plan

Film sound effects for Final Cut editing.

Edit with Hayden to either finish, or get a good proportion of the editing done for episode one.

Update Facebook/Twitter.

Tuesday 19th Film Shoot & Meeting

Today we shot the leftover scenes that we needed to complete for our first episode. This included the scenes we didn't have time to complete last time, and the shots for the title sequence. We worked much faster today than before. Where as last time we were all working with our own ideas and complications, today we worked more as a 'unit'. We knew what we had to do before we did it, everyone had already stated their ideas and they had either been used or discarded, we had finished a shot-list and a quick story-board.

We had to shoot a scene where one of our actors had to role backwards off a bench. This could be quite dangerous so we took every precaution we could to make it as safe as possible for him. I acted as camera-man and cinematographer for our work today since our cameraman Joe was away today.

When back at the classroom I also heavily updated our Facebook and Twitter accounts. We were told that it is very important that in the time running up to the launch of our show that we constantly update and keep people interested. I added all of the test footage to the Facebook page and it's starting to look very full.

I am looking forward to editing tomorrow.

Filming Photos

James directing:

Joe operating the camera:

Me off camera talking to Joe:

Keith's caffeine crash:

Monday 18th Editing

Today Hayden and I started to edit the footage shot on thursday, whilst Loz, James and Matt H. continued to edit and cut our test footage. Editing was Hayden was good, we both put in an equal contribution to the work and worked our best to make it look good. By the end we had about thirty seconds done (good considering we didn't have the whole three hours to edit).

When editing we quite often came across problems, such as issues with making the timing comedic, etc. We solved these by working as a pair, when I couldn't work out how to fix something, Hayden could, and vice-versa. I enjoyed working with Hayden, he was never too controlling or possessive over use of the computer and openly allowed me to give my creative input.

The film is turning out to look really good, better than I thought it might. I had worries that it would look tacky, but the cinematography so far seems very good and makes the whole show come together. I'm looking forward to when I can edit some more.

Evaluation of Progress So Far

I think my blogging evidence so far has been very good. Every day the class has done work for the Show project I have written a blog entry about it, reminiscent of the style of a diary. I have been critical and complementary, but most of all, honest. As for the classwork, I have kept up to date with all tasks set.

The marketing of our product has gone very well so far. We have created pages for our product on a number of leading/popular websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo. As well as this we have been linking all of them together so that they interlink and combine together.

We even produced a small teaser trailer for our micro-series that I think was very effective and a good marketing idea. It consisted of the camera slowly zooming in on a door, quiet arguing slowly grows to loud shouting until the trailer climaxes and a chair hits the window before on the video fades to black and shows the name Detention Deficit.

As for the scripting and planning we organised ourselves into specific roles, where everyone gave input into every area. For example; James predominantly wrote the script, however we all gave input towards elements of the script. We have planned very well towards the shooting and I think when we actually did the filming, we were fully prepared. All I can hope is that we can step this up a notch for next time.

The shooting was rushed, due to us being kicked out of several rooms that we had booked and/or were told we could 'definitely use'. My only criticism of myself in this particular area of work was that I should have just listened to the director more and ignored what my own ideas about the show were until a time when we had time to debate them, and decide on a vote. This is also a good point that should be mentioned about planning, and something that could be improved for filming next time.

As for being 'on schedule' we are actually ahead of schedule at the moment. I am delighted at how effectively our group is working and how quickly we are doing so. I see our show being finished far ahead of schedule, giving us time to work on other aspects of the show.

Friday 15th Show Project Meeting

Today our group organised all of the paper work that we needed to verify what we had done. We printed out copies of the script and other things such as making sure all the model release forms had been completed. Now we have done this, our target for finishing our first episode is wednesday, ready for premiering it on thursday.

We worked well as a group today. The communication between us was good and we managed to get all of our lesson targets finished with everyone putting in a good amount of work.

My Character: Pier

In the show I play the character Pier. Pier is living his life with the aspiration of it being as dramatic and exciting as in films. Due to this he always comes out with ridiculous escape plans to be free of detention that can all simply be undermined by walking out of the door. He looks at himself as being like the characters from the films such as the great escape and frequently tries to get away with quoting the film the Shawshank Redemption.

The Great Escape:

The Shawshank Redemption:

His clothing resembles those used in the Great Escape. Leather jacket, long scarf etc. He is proud of what he does and has a love towards the subject physics, which he often uses in his schemes.