Research Texts

About BBC writers room

‘…giving you access to commissioners and production departments but most importantly to the skills and and experience of established writers.’

‘At writersroom, the most important thing is our relationship with writers - and our ability, no matter how long it takes, to help them get their work commissioned and made.’

The TV listings show that most dramas like Eastenders are on around the 7.30 to 8.00pm time in the evenings , a competition drama from  another channel is ITV’s Downton Abbey.

Sherlock is a BBC Crime/Detective Drama, it’s a renovated version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

“Sherlock depicts "consulting detective" Holmes, assisting the Metropolitan Police Service, primarily DI Greg Lestrade (Rupert Graves), in solving various crimes. Holmes is assisted by his flatmate, Dr John Watson, who has returned from military service in Afghanistan. Although the series depicts a variety of crimes and perpetrators, Holmes' conflict with his archnemesis Jim Moriarty is a recurring feature. Pathologist Molly Hooper assists Holmes in her laboratory. “

Other characters are Mrs. Hudson, Holmes and Watson's landlady; Sgt. Sally Donovan; and Sherlock's brother, Mycroft Holmes.



More BBC Dramas are:

- Parade's End (Period Drama)

- Silent Witness (Crime Drama)

- Doctor Who (Science Fiction Drama)

- Call The Midwife (Medical Drama)

Silent Witness: Choices

In the opening scene ainsley modest and his girlfriend helen were sitting in a car talking about her engagement ring then they got out and she went to talk to Simone Campbell outside the club then a dark car drives up winds down the window and  opens fire on the people in line for the club.

The characters involved in this scene are

-Ainesly Modest

-Helen (Modest's girlfriend)

-Simone Campbell                       

-People in line for club

-Bouncers

I think the primary audience for this programme is from about 35 to 55ish because it's on at 9pm and this particular episode was about guns and drugs so its not aimed at children.

I think the secondary audience for this programme is from about 25 to 34 because they also may like crime dramas.

Sherlock: A Scandle in Belgravia

In the opening scene Sherlock, John and Moriarty are at the swimming pool, it shows a recap of the last episode of the first series where John is strapped to a bomb and sherlock takes it off of him after Moriarty leaves the room then he comes back deciding they can't live then he gets a phone call and leaves then you see Irene Adler hanging up the phone. Then they we're in the appartment talking to people who are asking them to solve their cases for them.

Characters involved in the opening scene:

-Sherlock Holmes

-Dr. John Watson

-Jim Moriarty

-Irene Adler

I think the primary audience for Sherlock is from about 15 to 30 year olds and the secondary audience is from about 30 to 50.

In this episode I liked the on screen text and the scene where Sherlock is talking Irene through the case and it goes from her lounge into the field and the clever deduction bits.

Edge of Darkness: Compassionate Leave

In the opening scene they are talking about voting and a political party and then her dad comes to pick her up and then as they'ge going to walk upto their house when she gets shot.

Characters involved in the opening scene:

-Ronald Craven

-Emma Craven

-Extras in the political room

I think the primary audience for edge of darkness is from about 40 to 55 and the secondary audience is about 30 to 40.

the things about this episode I didn't like was the whole thing was quite slow paced and some parts didn't make sense and wasn't really interesting.

Parade's End: Episode 1

In the opening seen Christopher and Sylvia are on their way to their wedding, it has flashbacks showing how they met and got to be getting married, christopher isn't sure if the child is his and sylvia is in her own car with her mother and a preist and her mother is talking about christopher is a god send.

Characters involved in the openeing scene:

-Christopher Teitjens

-Sylvia Tietjens

-Sylvia's mother

-Macmasters

-Father Consett

I think the target audience is from about 25 - 40 and also people who are fans of the books or like period dramas and the secondary could be 40 - 50.

The things I liked about Parade's End was that it was well written and interesting.

Eastenders

It starts with a christmas fare then man and his son are opening presents of glow in the dark stars and then he says he's so sorry. A man and some woman are talking about a cake and their wedding and honeymoon.

Characters involved in the opening scene:

-Alfie Moon

-A Child (probably his son)

- Max(?)

-A Woman

I think the target audience for eastenders is from about 25 to 50 and the secondary audience could be 50+

I didn't like that because i haven't watched this programme before and i didn't really know who was who or what some of the things going on were.

Understanding the requirements of working to a brief

There are lots of different ways briefs can be presented, one is contractual. Contractual is when the brief is outlined in an employment contract, an example of this is when Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat pitched their idea about revamping Sherlock Holmes to the BBC and they had meetings and talked about it and wrote up a contract to sign to show what they had agreed on.

Negotiated is when you need to work collaboratively with someone to create a brief and discuss and agree things together. Formal is when a client explains what they want and their requirements to you in a meeting where as an informal brief would be when the client discusses these over the phone or email. A commission is when a person is requested and they sign a contract. Tender is when companies are sent briefs via post or email and you are asked to respond with your ideas and put up against ideas from other companies and people. Also you can enter competitions which give you briefs about what the client wants from you. There also Cooperative briefs where different companies work together.

The E4 brief said the Esting needed to be 10 seconds long and it also had the deadline of Friday the 9th of November 2012, these were important because they didn't want them to take up too much time when they were on tv between shows and also if they were too short they would be less noticeable. There was a deadline of Friday the 9th of November because they needed a set time for all of them to be in so they could choose which ones to use for the TV. 

For consulting the client/ my tutor, I made a blog post with my Esting idea ( http://ralvarezbtec.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/planning-estign.html ) and had my tutor check it to make sure it was ok. The brief was strict on the amount of time the Esting had to be and when it had to be in but apart from that we were allowed to do anything with it within reason as long as it was appropriate fort the channel and brief. The constraints of making the E Sting were that I couldn't use whatever music I wanted because of copyright but E4 did provide clips of music to use for E stings on their website. I didn't find any problems with my E Sting that was affected by ethics or regulatory bodies because my idea was appropriate for anyone to view during day time TV. I received feedback via questionnaires, reviews on youtube and from a focus group we held in class, the things I needed to improve on were to shorten it a bit because it went over the time allotted in the brief and also make the superheros arm move when he threw the purple blobs at the villain. So I went back and re-shot some things and this is my improved ESting:

I didn't have to make amendments to the budget as the college had paid for the equipment, plasticine, pipe cleaners etc, already. Also I didn't need to change the time scale I did it in as I met the deadline and I also didn't have to make any amendment to fees as I didn't have any but if this was being done on a larger scale in the industry not for a competition to do yourself I may have had them.

Doing this task there were lots of opportunities for self-development, I learned alot about animation and how claymation is done and I found it really enjoyable to create the characters, sets and think of ideas to do for my Esting. I may use this in the future for my music video, or segments of it, at the end of the year. The new skills I learned was how to make the modles and how to shoot claymation and put it into a video to make it work, I had to multi-skill at times to keep the characters where I wanted them and try keep my hand out of shot whilst I took the next frame for the animation. I feel I contributed to the brief because I had my own idea of what I wanted to do that kept to the target audience for E4 and no one else in class did the same thing, I kept to the 10 seconds in my improved version and I got my video done in time for the deadline.

ESting Evaluation

This is my ESting for E4, it's about a bad guy trying to run away from a super hero but in the end getting splatted with a purple blob that turns into the E4 logo.

I Showed my work to audiences by tweeting a link to it on twitter, showing them in person and emailing people the link and asking them to fill out the questionnaire and we also had a focus group where the whole group saw it.

The required criteria for the questionnaire answers covered their age & gender, genre, the story behing the E sting, the best part creatively, astheticaly & technically, target audience, suitability, improvements,character design and set design.

I collected reviews from youtube, i linked the E sting to my twitter, i asked people to complete a questionnaire and we held a focus group.

This is what people thought of it on YouTube:

People who took the questionnaire favourite parts were; when the superhero was throwing purple blobs, the E4 logo, the use of the colours and the kick in the face. They also all liked the character and set design.

The things they felt needed improving were the jumpyness of it, the position and some of the movement of the modles and the speed. All of the people who took the questionnaire were in the target audience for E4.

The feedback from the focus group i got was that the set design was good, colourful and bright, the lamp post and phone box were appropriate for the setting for the characters, the movement during the kick and movement of limps, they found the music appropriate and also liked the zooms.

The things they felt needed improving were that when the hero through the blobs that he needed more arm movement and that the modles were over worked a bit.

Ways i could report my findings are in written form, in a video blog (vlogging) or a presentation.

What I enjoyed about doing the ESting was creating the set and character and thinking of the idea of what to do for it, I think it went well overall but filming some parts were a bit of a challenge because of keeping the characters standing up or putting them in certain positions without my hand being seen in shot. The part in the video i feel went/ looked best was when the E4 logo came out of the blob that hit the bad guy in the end, the thing i feel could be improved  is that i think the video could look better if it was slowed down so its easier to follow but i cant do that with this one because it has to be a certain amout of time but overall I feel the E Sting went well.

The aim of the task was to create a E Sting for E4 the format i used to do this was stop-motion animation, the constraints of making the E Sting were that i couldn't use whatever music i wanted because of copyright but E4 did provide clips of music to use for E stings on their website, I didn't find any problems with my E Sting that was effected by regulatory bodies because i knew what was acceptable and unacceptable and my idea didn't include anything innaporopriate.

I managed my time and workload well as I finished in time and made the deadline, I organised myself by figuring out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it before hand and then taking the pictures that I needed for it, one of the requirements was that it was 10 seconds long, my original video went over the time but with re-shoots and re- editing it I think it’s now the right amount of time. I think I organised myself well because I didn’t need extra time to do it or have to rush it at the end. The praise I got was that the set design was good, colourful and bright, the lamp post and phone box were appropriate for the setting for the characters, the movement during the kick and movement of limps, they found the music appropriate and also liked the zooms.

Most of my feedback I got from YouTube, questionnaires and also we had a focus group in class, the results from my feedback were to improve it by stopping it  being so jumpy, the position and some of the movement of the models and the speed. The set design was good, colourful and bright, the lamp post and phone box were appropriate for the setting for the characters, the movement during the kick and movement of limps, they found the music appropriate and also liked the zooms. They felt that when the hero through the blobs that he needed more arm movement and that the models were over worked a bit needed improvement

Some of the YouTube comment feedback was :

·         i thought that this was a bit confusing and there was a lot going on. however i understand how hard it must have been to do this and i am impressed with the movement of the characters.

it was also longer than it should have been and didnt look finished at the end, maybe you could find a way of shortening it.

 - Jack Jenkins

·         Really liked the idea of this,and all the different angles used,thought it was really good overall. - Ahsley91bX

·         Loved the superhero theme, this is a great take on the genre and I feel this would work very effectively if ever used – daryl gillham

·         really good idea, lots of attention to detail and the music fits with the theme well, moves a little too quickly but it's easy to understand whats going on- elizp94

·         its hard to keep track of the action with the camera moving quick but i like the ending of the E4 logo coming out. – faisalalyusef

I think I have acquired some skills that would be useful in the media industry from doing this and I really enjoyed doing the animation I don’t know if I would pursue a job in animation.

Planning an estign

It starts with A superhero that is blasting purple stuff from his hands at a bad guy when he misses the bad guy it makes purple blobs on the wall then when he does hit the bad guy at the end he splats into an E4 sign.

E4 is a digital tv channel which was launched pay TV companion for channel 4, it was launched on the 18th of  January 2001 and is owned by the Channel Four Television Corporation. the E in the name of the channel E4 stands for entertainment. The target audience for the channel E4 is 15 to 35 year olds. The website for E4 not only just gives information about the television shows that it broadcasts but also has excusive videos and games, the games would probably appeal to their target audience as teens and some people in their 30's and older may enjoy playing them but mostly the younger side of the audience as these games seem to be created with teens in mind. Some of E4's most popular shows are The Inbetweeners, Ugly Betty, Misfits and Made in Chelsea. The show that got the most views ever (not including repeats or E4+1 showings) was the 'Will is Home Alone' episode of The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners is a popular show with teenagers.

my idea would be suitable for E4 because it is not serious and would probably appeal more to a younger 15-35 year old audience than it would for a tv channel like the BBC.

Test Shots- the sass master

These are the test shots i did for The Sass Master, it was hard to keep him stood up and move him about   without breaking him and it got  quite frustrating, but i did enjoy designing and making him.

The Sass Master

Name: The Sass Master

Secret Identity: Dale Sass

Age: 21

Occupation 1: Super Hero

 - Saves the world with sassy comments and hand sanitiser.

Tools - Book of sassy comebacks, hand sanatiser and hand cuffs.

Occupation 2: Fashion Intern

Tools- Pencils, Paper and Fabric. 

Pass times: Zumba, Kickboxing, Baking and Fighting Crime.

The History of Animation

Persistence of vision and Thaumatropes

Persistence of vision is a theory that says that the eye keeps an image for one twelfth of a second after its been seen this would mean everything  we see is a blur of all these images together, this is thought to explain our ability to see a sequence of images of a continuous moving image.

Thaumatropes were optical toys used for entertainment, the name 'thaumatrope' means 'turning marvel' or 'wonder turner', the man who made the thaumatrope popular was Dr. John A. Paris, a physicist from London.

The theory of persistence of vision was proven wrong in 1912 and it's thought that our brain reads the two static images as movement when shown quickly in succession.



Stop Frame Animation

Stop frame animation is making a object appear to move by its self, for this to happen you take pictures of the object but each time the animator changes the position of the object slightly, this can also be done with plasticine, when it's done with plasticine this is called claymation.

Frame Rates

Frame rates are the speed of which the pictures are shown to create the illusion of movement , there are 3 main standard frame rates used in TV and Film, these are 24p, 25p and 30p if the frame rate is too low it isn't effective in showing the movement. Animation works in 2's this means that there are only 12 frames shown per second.

Phenakitiscope

The Phenakitiscope was invented by Joseph plateau in 1832, it was two discs made of paper on the same axis which had pictures on it and when spun and viewed through a mirror made an animation.

Zoetrope 

A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures.
Sequential images are painted on a paper stripe. This paper stripe is put in a revolving drum. When the drum revolved people could look through the slots in the drum and have the illusion of motion.
The Zoetrope was invented by William Horner in 1834 originally called a Daedaleum.

Praxinoscope

The Praxinoscope was invented by Emile Raynaud in 1877 it worked a lot like a Zoetrope except instead of viewing the animation through a slit it had a mirror in the middle to make the viewing of the animation easier. The Praxinoscope was made with the purpose to amuse young children.

Eadwaerd Muybridge

Eadwaerd Muybridge was a British photographer who was a pioneer in the studies of motion and motion picture projecting. In 1874 he shot and killed the man his wife was cheating on him with and got away with it after the jury had decided it was justifiable.

Eadwaerd was hired to research if horses took all four hoofs off of the ground so he rigged a racecourse with 12 strings connected to 12 cameras and proved they did, but by doing this he also set off a revolution in motion photography. 

Kinetiscope

The Kinetiscope, known as a "motion picture exhibition device", was designed to view films individually by looking through a peep hole. The Kinetiscope was not a projector but introduced the approach that would be standard for all cinema projecting. The Kineticsope was invented by Thomas Edison in 1888.

The Lumière Brothers

The Lumière brothers were the pioneers for early cinema and animation and invented the cinematograph. The cinematograph was a camera and a projector in on and people referred to this as animating pictures. The Lumière brothers set up a camera outside a factory and filmed people coming out of work.

George Pal

George Pal made forms of animations called 'Puppetoons' in the 1940's, Puppetoons were made of wood and in each frame the puppet would be changed, this is called replacement animation.
Pal also used animation in his live action films, an example of this was in his film "Time Machine" from 1959.

Willis O'Brien

Willis O'Brien was an Irish American motion picture special effects stop motion animation pioneer even though he didn't have a lot of success he did get awarded a Oscar for special effects in 1950. He is best known for King Kong and Mighty Joe Young and Ray Harryhausen was his inspiration.

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen was an American special effects creator, producer and writer who created his own type of stop motion animation called 'dynamation'. It took Harryhausen a long time to film his work because he worked alone. 


Jan Svankmajer

Jan Svankmajer was an czech film maker who was known for making surreal animations and was a self- labeled surrealist.

The Brothers Quay

Steven and Timothy Quay are identical twins more commonly known as 'The Brothers Quay' are well known stop motion animators, they studied at the royal college of the arts in London. They formed Konick studios in 1980, they have gone on to make several successful films such as 'The Chairs' which won them the Drama Desk Award for outstanding set design in 1998.

Tim Burton

Tim Burton was born on August 25th 1958, He makes gothic movies like Edward Scissorhands and recently Alice In Wonderland, he went to and graduated from CalArts and soon after graduating he was offered a apprenticiship working for Disney. He Also wrote the famous film 'A Nightmare Before Christmas'.

Ardman

Ardman was founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, they are most famous for their claymation animation style which is used for Wallace and Gromit their most well known features, their first successful claymation was morf and their first feature film was 'Chicken run'. Claymation is done by using plasticine and stop motion animation, they use about 24 frames per second. Ardman try not to refine the models too much because if they did they "may as well use computer animation".

History of Animation

Animation was first about since the 19^th Century, one of the first popular animated characters was Gertie the dinosaur. The first animation full length film was Disney’s snow white and the seven dwarfs which came out in 1937.  There are animations other than feature length ones made as TV shows, for example Scooby-Doo.

Styles of Animation in TV and Film

There are many styles of Animation used, the original style of animation is the type that every frame is drawn by hand. Stop Motion animation is physically manipulating real objects and taking a still of each move frame by frame and putting them together to make it look like the object is moving. Computer Animation, this is the most recent and current form of animation because of the new technology that makes it possible a examples of where computer animation is used are, Toy Story (the first full length computer animated film) and more recently Avatar.

Audience of Animation

There are different audiences for animation, animation is generally aimed at kids and families in shows like Spongebob Squarepants, but there are also animations that have been made for teenagers and adults.

Channel Idents

A Channel Ident is showing the name of a channel in a clip, these generally have a voice over person telling the viewer what is coming up next on that channel.

Advertising

Advertising is how broadcasters other than the BBC fund their programming, the more popular the TV program the more expensive it is to put your advert on in the breaks between it.

Animated Music Videos

Some music videos are animated or have animated sequences in them, animation is sometimes used to make the impossible possible, an example of a music video which has animation in it is A-Ha's Take On Me