H. Project evaluation
Introduction
In the post, I will take you through a break down of my responsibility of the show, demonstrating my learning outcome for each component, as a director My main responsibility would have been on set but in pre-production, I oversaw different aspect of the show.
Pre-production
The most important part about a studio production is for the producer to come up with the script, without a script a director’s vision on how the technical team are going to work is at a standstill.
Directors must be able to effectively communicate their vision to the crew. They also have to be able to be team builders, moving the crew towards that vision. (Owens, 2016:19)
There-for the script is the key element for any director to be able to plan and work with the crew, thus in the meantime as a director, I am responsible for being the team builder within the production team and overseeing all area’s alongside the producers.
The producers and directors are equal, the producer's job is to concentrate on the show’s format and creative style whilst the director is responsible for the technical side. For the pre-production stage I was responsible for overseeing:
Script.
Set.
Costume.
Make-up.
Castings.
Camera positioning.
Lighting.
Promos.
Script.
The first draft of the script was heavily dialogued as the characters for the show have bold personalities, so the script was based on who they are, however, although the script was filled with humorous puns and innuendoes it took away the concept of making it a game show and the contestants got lost in the narrative. As a director camera angles would have been a challenge as everything the dialogue suggested would have needed to be captured through the lens, and the complexity of the script would have been a challenge to visualise.
Directors have to break down the script and make the vision come to the screen.
Once you have identified the story and its structure, you have more analysis to do, this time involving the characters of your story. (Rooney. Belli. 2016:21).
Yet the structure had not been formatted before the characters where written, the focus was more on the dialogue, we went back through the script to create a structure before focusing on what needed to be said, a heavy dialogue script on a live show can cause all sorts of issues even if the actors are professional, lines can be missed, cues can be forgotten so this can create all kinds of issue with various parts of the live production team.
My Learning Outcome
From my research I have learned about the importance of getting a script complete before a director can work out the shots, it is important for clear communication between the directors and the producers to be able to liaise regularly when the script is being worked on so this includes having great time management.
I found that on this production the scripts were not available in time for me to do my shot list and to work out what will happen on the day and the communication was futile at times as it was stressful for the producers to have to consistently change content within the show. So I did other jobs so that I could see the bigger picture. This helps me developed a variety of other skills and knowledge such as 'what actually goes into making a tv show'.
Set.
When the pitch was put forward for Quest before pre-production had begun, it seemed like the most complex thing about the production, we had to think about practicality, audience and set changes within a short time frame. In the meetings that followed, we drew up some ideas which could initially work however creating a vision seemed more complicated the later we got on with preproduction stages. The set needed to have three different scenes, one being a tavern, one being a forest and the last being a cave.
The first idea was to have backdrops that changed during the VT’s, the second idea was to have three different separate sets which the actors could walk through and we could use lighting to dim the sets which are not going to be used. We took these ideas to the set designers and give them some free range to come up with something that is practical and easy to be moved during the VT’s, for this to happen within a practical time frame we had to make the VT’s longer to enable people to move the set and to ensure that the floor managers to get everything needed for the actors and contestants within that time frame so instead of having 45 seconds on the VT’s we now had up to 3 minutes on Each VT’s.
Planning begins with discussions between the director and the set designer: using sketches, scale plans and elevations, production concepts are transformed into practicalities of,an-hours, cost, and materials. (Owen, 2016:220)
As a director going to set design meetings are very vital for my role as it is apart of my role to work out where the lighting is going and how the actors and contestants are going to be blocked.
Blocking is very important for actors/contestants and for the crew to know where things need to be and where the cameras need to be pointed, without this knowledge it is unclear on what will work best for the authenticity of the show which we are creating.
Costume
Quest is a complex show with characters that are bold with fantasy attire. To ensure that the costumes are visually authentic to the audience at home and in the studio it was important to have the cast in theatrical style costume. I researched local theatre schools and sourced another institute called Rose Bruford College in Sidcup who specialise in theatre costume. I found out that sourcing other institutes and companies is a great way to build relationships with people whom you may work with in the future, it creates a platform for students to build on a portfolio.
The costume department was very thorough with what the required to put together their brief, they asked about the characters, the vision of the show, narration and style bible, They have technical knowledge of television clothing, and the artistic ability to interpret briefs from directors. Properly designed clothes will allow for the performer’s movement and be made to last as long as required. (Fairweather, R. 1998:42)
We sent over mood boards of the set and costume to give them an indication of what the show will look like as a whole.
As a director organising the schedule was not apart of my role but as I had the direct contact and trusted clients they preferred to communicate through myself, although all the information was sent via the production email, I found that outsourcing and just asking is a key role for anyone who wants to work on a show that has a low or no budget as it may just be what another department wants to get involved with for the befit of there own portfolio.
My Learning Outcome.
By seeing what the set was going to look like, it was a visual piece of work which helped me develop the mood and the toon for the lighting plan and helped me see how the actors were going to be blocked, as we didn't get to the stage of having the set built, I still had the visual elements in which required me to get on with thinking about the structure of the transmission day.
Make-up
It was organised for the production management team to have a meeting with a new make-up course within the UCA.
Although as a director I’m not heavily involved in the creative side it was very interesting to go along and be a part of these meetings. I got to meet the makeup artist and I got to watch the pitch again and I found that hearing in the pitch more and more it made me more Familia of the show and content.
I was also available to ask questions. I took the opportunity to promote the studio and working with our team.
Castings.
In the production team, we have a researcher who was briefed on each character description and what and how to put out the casting call, it was my job alongside the management team to lease with the researcher to oversee what was being sent out and working out schedules for the casting dates both self-tape deadlines and physical castings.
As the roles on the production are split for the show our researcher is the floor manager during rehearsals and the production, so it was important for us to be close during pre-production. The floor manager (FM)/Stage manager (SM) is the director’s primary representative and contact on the studio floor, in the broadcast booth or on the field of play. (Owens, 2016:21) so I took this as an opportunity to build a professional working environment in close proximity, this was possible with smaller production meetings.
Reflections
Getting as much out of this project has proven to be quite challenging at the beginning. I understand that my job role as a director was to take the script and create it into the script readable for the studio crew, however, I felt like the producers may have been a little too protective over their idea and were subject to change it a few times throughout the weeks.
Not having my idea commissioned was a bit of a blow at the beginning, but this in the real world is what to be expected, we can't have everything we want because that is not how life and the industry works and people in the industry (myself included) have waited decades to get there ideas to the screen. So, after a meltdown, I did what any other professional person would do and sucked it up.
I didn’t know which role I wanted to take on Quest as I had two roles in mind, floor manager was the first option and this was because I enjoy being on set and being amongst the crew, I feel that I have a confidence to communicate with others and to get work done efficiently.
My second option was to be director, however, I didn’t think that the director would be different from the film directed to the studio director so I had to do some more research for that and my research took me to places that I thought that I didn’t want to be but it was too late I had got the job as director.
After developing ideas and working with the script I found that I actually enjoyed this role in the preproduction stages. But I did not enjoy working in the gallery, my confidence was shot down, This was because I don't like being shut away from the action, I want to be amongst the crew and working with the actors. The gallery was claustrophobic for me and required great technical attention to detail, also whilst multitasking. Even after speaking to Del Brown, he mentioned that he was shocked about the change in my confidence when in the gallery from being out on the floor, this is not a role that I would do again, this experience for me has been a very valuable learning one, as I now know that I will never apply to be a studio director it is the floor manager role that I would enjoy the most.
Picking a channel for the show through me and a lot of other people away from the research which they had already done, The show went from, Channel 4 then to DAVE and ended up on YouTube.
This said to me that the research hadn't been thought out as much in-depth which it should have been.
When researching ideas it is important to answer as many questions about that before pitching, I understand the producers said channel 4 and in respect, it could have fitted by changing the tone of the show, I still think after everything throughout the development stages, if the language had changed it could have been a kids show on ITV, also it would have been less confusion about the script and demographic, it could have also (sticking to having the language) could have gone on Comedy Central. I did voice my opinion about having the latter but when its not your idea and you are hired to do one job it's best you do that job without interfering.
We were cut short because of COVID19, but the only challenging thing that has come about for the purpose of the R&D is not knowing what the show would actually look like.
The team that has worked on the show have been consistent in uploading their work and being creative, if I was in a different role whilst being in lockdown I could have looked deeper into other research and enjoyed it. I feel I have researched my role in-depth but I feel I haven't been able to find anything to help me understand what the show was about.
Although my research is about other sources I feel like they are related to our show in many aspects of tone, mood and developing my skills further.
Bibliography.
Owens, J. (2016) Television production (ed:16). Oxon:Focal Press.
Fairweather, R. (1998) Basic studio directing. Oxford:Focal Press.
Dubitsky, M. (2019) ‘What does a TV and Film Director do?’ In: 26/08/19 [online] At: https://www.centralcasting.com/what-does-tv-film-director-do/ (Accessed on 20 February 2020)
Rooney, B. Belli, ML. (2016) Directors tell the story (Ed: Second). Oxon: Routledge.
In the post, I will take you through a break down of my responsibility of the show, demonstrating my learning outcome for each component, as a director My main responsibility would have been on set but in pre-production, I oversaw different aspect of the show.
Pre-production
The most important part about a studio production is for the producer to come up with the script, without a script a director’s vision on how the technical team are going to work is at a standstill.
Directors must be able to effectively communicate their vision to the crew. They also have to be able to be team builders, moving the crew towards that vision. (Owens, 2016:19)
There-for the script is the key element for any director to be able to plan and work with the crew, thus in the meantime as a director, I am responsible for being the team builder within the production team and overseeing all area’s alongside the producers.
The producers and directors are equal, the producer's job is to concentrate on the show’s format and creative style whilst the director is responsible for the technical side. For the pre-production stage I was responsible for overseeing:
Script.
Set.
Costume.
Make-up.
Castings.
Camera positioning.
Lighting.
Promos.
Script.
The first draft of the script was heavily dialogued as the characters for the show have bold personalities, so the script was based on who they are, however, although the script was filled with humorous puns and innuendoes it took away the concept of making it a game show and the contestants got lost in the narrative. As a director camera angles would have been a challenge as everything the dialogue suggested would have needed to be captured through the lens, and the complexity of the script would have been a challenge to visualise.
Directors have to break down the script and make the vision come to the screen.
Once you have identified the story and its structure, you have more analysis to do, this time involving the characters of your story. (Rooney. Belli. 2016:21).
Yet the structure had not been formatted before the characters where written, the focus was more on the dialogue, we went back through the script to create a structure before focusing on what needed to be said, a heavy dialogue script on a live show can cause all sorts of issues even if the actors are professional, lines can be missed, cues can be forgotten so this can create all kinds of issue with various parts of the live production team.
My Learning Outcome
From my research I have learned about the importance of getting a script complete before a director can work out the shots, it is important for clear communication between the directors and the producers to be able to liaise regularly when the script is being worked on so this includes having great time management.
I found that on this production the scripts were not available in time for me to do my shot list and to work out what will happen on the day and the communication was futile at times as it was stressful for the producers to have to consistently change content within the show. So I did other jobs so that I could see the bigger picture. This helps me developed a variety of other skills and knowledge such as 'what actually goes into making a tv show'.
Set.
When the pitch was put forward for Quest before pre-production had begun, it seemed like the most complex thing about the production, we had to think about practicality, audience and set changes within a short time frame. In the meetings that followed, we drew up some ideas which could initially work however creating a vision seemed more complicated the later we got on with preproduction stages. The set needed to have three different scenes, one being a tavern, one being a forest and the last being a cave.
The first idea was to have backdrops that changed during the VT’s, the second idea was to have three different separate sets which the actors could walk through and we could use lighting to dim the sets which are not going to be used. We took these ideas to the set designers and give them some free range to come up with something that is practical and easy to be moved during the VT’s, for this to happen within a practical time frame we had to make the VT’s longer to enable people to move the set and to ensure that the floor managers to get everything needed for the actors and contestants within that time frame so instead of having 45 seconds on the VT’s we now had up to 3 minutes on Each VT’s.
Planning begins with discussions between the director and the set designer: using sketches, scale plans and elevations, production concepts are transformed into practicalities of,an-hours, cost, and materials. (Owen, 2016:220)
As a director going to set design meetings are very vital for my role as it is apart of my role to work out where the lighting is going and how the actors and contestants are going to be blocked.
Blocking is very important for actors/contestants and for the crew to know where things need to be and where the cameras need to be pointed, without this knowledge it is unclear on what will work best for the authenticity of the show which we are creating.
Costume
Quest is a complex show with characters that are bold with fantasy attire. To ensure that the costumes are visually authentic to the audience at home and in the studio it was important to have the cast in theatrical style costume. I researched local theatre schools and sourced another institute called Rose Bruford College in Sidcup who specialise in theatre costume. I found out that sourcing other institutes and companies is a great way to build relationships with people whom you may work with in the future, it creates a platform for students to build on a portfolio.
The costume department was very thorough with what the required to put together their brief, they asked about the characters, the vision of the show, narration and style bible, They have technical knowledge of television clothing, and the artistic ability to interpret briefs from directors. Properly designed clothes will allow for the performer’s movement and be made to last as long as required. (Fairweather, R. 1998:42)
We sent over mood boards of the set and costume to give them an indication of what the show will look like as a whole.
As a director organising the schedule was not apart of my role but as I had the direct contact and trusted clients they preferred to communicate through myself, although all the information was sent via the production email, I found that outsourcing and just asking is a key role for anyone who wants to work on a show that has a low or no budget as it may just be what another department wants to get involved with for the befit of there own portfolio.
My Learning Outcome.
By seeing what the set was going to look like, it was a visual piece of work which helped me develop the mood and the toon for the lighting plan and helped me see how the actors were going to be blocked, as we didn't get to the stage of having the set built, I still had the visual elements in which required me to get on with thinking about the structure of the transmission day.
Make-up
It was organised for the production management team to have a meeting with a new make-up course within the UCA.
Although as a director I’m not heavily involved in the creative side it was very interesting to go along and be a part of these meetings. I got to meet the makeup artist and I got to watch the pitch again and I found that hearing in the pitch more and more it made me more Familia of the show and content.
I was also available to ask questions. I took the opportunity to promote the studio and working with our team.
Castings.
In the production team, we have a researcher who was briefed on each character description and what and how to put out the casting call, it was my job alongside the management team to lease with the researcher to oversee what was being sent out and working out schedules for the casting dates both self-tape deadlines and physical castings.
As the roles on the production are split for the show our researcher is the floor manager during rehearsals and the production, so it was important for us to be close during pre-production. The floor manager (FM)/Stage manager (SM) is the director’s primary representative and contact on the studio floor, in the broadcast booth or on the field of play. (Owens, 2016:21) so I took this as an opportunity to build a professional working environment in close proximity, this was possible with smaller production meetings.
Reflections
Getting as much out of this project has proven to be quite challenging at the beginning. I understand that my job role as a director was to take the script and create it into the script readable for the studio crew, however, I felt like the producers may have been a little too protective over their idea and were subject to change it a few times throughout the weeks.
Not having my idea commissioned was a bit of a blow at the beginning, but this in the real world is what to be expected, we can't have everything we want because that is not how life and the industry works and people in the industry (myself included) have waited decades to get there ideas to the screen. So, after a meltdown, I did what any other professional person would do and sucked it up.
I didn’t know which role I wanted to take on Quest as I had two roles in mind, floor manager was the first option and this was because I enjoy being on set and being amongst the crew, I feel that I have a confidence to communicate with others and to get work done efficiently.
My second option was to be director, however, I didn’t think that the director would be different from the film directed to the studio director so I had to do some more research for that and my research took me to places that I thought that I didn’t want to be but it was too late I had got the job as director.
After developing ideas and working with the script I found that I actually enjoyed this role in the preproduction stages. But I did not enjoy working in the gallery, my confidence was shot down, This was because I don't like being shut away from the action, I want to be amongst the crew and working with the actors. The gallery was claustrophobic for me and required great technical attention to detail, also whilst multitasking. Even after speaking to Del Brown, he mentioned that he was shocked about the change in my confidence when in the gallery from being out on the floor, this is not a role that I would do again, this experience for me has been a very valuable learning one, as I now know that I will never apply to be a studio director it is the floor manager role that I would enjoy the most.
Picking a channel for the show through me and a lot of other people away from the research which they had already done, The show went from, Channel 4 then to DAVE and ended up on YouTube.
This said to me that the research hadn't been thought out as much in-depth which it should have been.
When researching ideas it is important to answer as many questions about that before pitching, I understand the producers said channel 4 and in respect, it could have fitted by changing the tone of the show, I still think after everything throughout the development stages, if the language had changed it could have been a kids show on ITV, also it would have been less confusion about the script and demographic, it could have also (sticking to having the language) could have gone on Comedy Central. I did voice my opinion about having the latter but when its not your idea and you are hired to do one job it's best you do that job without interfering.
We were cut short because of COVID19, but the only challenging thing that has come about for the purpose of the R&D is not knowing what the show would actually look like.
The team that has worked on the show have been consistent in uploading their work and being creative, if I was in a different role whilst being in lockdown I could have looked deeper into other research and enjoyed it. I feel I have researched my role in-depth but I feel I haven't been able to find anything to help me understand what the show was about.
Although my research is about other sources I feel like they are related to our show in many aspects of tone, mood and developing my skills further.
Bibliography.
Owens, J. (2016) Television production (ed:16). Oxon:Focal Press.
Fairweather, R. (1998) Basic studio directing. Oxford:Focal Press.
Dubitsky, M. (2019) ‘What does a TV and Film Director do?’ In: 26/08/19 [online] At: https://www.centralcasting.com/what-does-tv-film-director-do/ (Accessed on 20 February 2020)
Rooney, B. Belli, ML. (2016) Directors tell the story (Ed: Second). Oxon: Routledge.
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