Week Beginning 2/3

Monday was a late start: not in till the afternoon for a class with Barbara, looking at the use of the family unit in TV drama. This is not necessarily a literal family, but is a nucleus of individuals with a conscious or subconscious leader and depute. Within this "family" there can be conflict, but when push comes to shove, they are essentially a team. We were set the task of devising in groups a TV drama that would be suitable for families to watch in the Sunday 8pm slot of BBC1 or ITV. It has taken us a good deal of thought to come up with something, but we think we eventually have the seed of an idea for it.

Tuesday was an early start, with a technical assessment at 8.45. Despite over-running and a couple of momentary mind blanks, I passed and wrote up a 500 word evaulation of the assessment.

Tuesday afternoon was Screenwriting. Richard was absent, so instead we had a screening of The Shawshank Redemption and made notes about it for discussion next week. It's going to be a mammoth class on Tuesday coming, with notes on Shawshank, feedback on the redrafts of 7 scripts, and not forgetting the 72 premises we have been told to come up with in total.

Wednesday at 1pm was our TPA/DFTV Production Meeting. There were less than ten TPA folk in the room, and almost everyone from DFTV1/3. Although I know a lot of the TPA students were working at the time, I think it shows the mixed feelings the TPA dept has for working with DFTV. Having said that, I am still bringing together a team of DFTV and TPA students to pitch a collaborative film to the two departments by next week, and certain individuals within TPA are almost scarily keen to work with film.
Wednesday afternoon was a continued look at commercials on TV, particularly with regard to representation. I find it very interesting to see adverts from the past, and see how little has changed after the initial "finding their feet" period. In particular, I found that some of the old adverts kept me just an interested as modern day ones.

Thursday started with a lecture on Cinema. In particular, we looked at cinema attendences during the Golden Age of Hollywood and how the Great Depression put, initially, an upwards pressure on the audience figures, before pulling them down again. I wonder if a similar thing will happen in the recession. I doubt it. While the cheap form of entertainment in the Depression may have been the cinema, now the cheapest form of entertainment (beyond meeting your pals for a blether!) is watching TV or renting a movie. Those watching their pennies (such as myself) rarely go to the cinema (though recently it has been more of an issue of time (the management and justified use thereof) than finance).
Thursday afternoon was Mobile/Web tecnhology. I have to confess I find this whole area somewhat bewildering. For someone like myself, who is still blinking my way gingerly into the 21st century, the concept of watching TV on a mobile seems faintly bizarre. Surely the cost of the internet connection long enough to download whatever it was you were watching, and the microscopic nature of the screen would combine to make this a most unappetising prospect. Further, the lack of a good business model leading to a lack of production values means that most stuff created for the web or for mobile (without a TV series or feature film to front it) is rather poor quality.
I think its something to do with my mindset. (I would far rather read a book a few pages at a time, or watch a feature film in five minute bursts that read a magazine or watch a short film.) But anyway, I have yet to get round to watching the links that we have been given.

Friday was a Screening of Stagecoach, followed by a Screening of Double Indemnity. In the gap between the two, we had a production meeting for Lord of the Rings in 60 Seconds. Things are beginning to get moving on this one and hopefully we will soon see it getting properly off the ground.