carlislewildlife-blog

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Critical Appraisal

For my TV production module, I was given the role of script writer, a new challenge that I had not done a lot of in the past. Scripts that I had previously written had all been for short films and writing that kind of dialogue seemed easy as it was mainly just every day talk. The thing that challenged me with writing the script for the live show, was that I know I had to make it upbeat and lively as this is how presenters generally talk in order to captivate their audience and make them continue to watch.

I think even though originally daunted by the prospect of writing a script for a live show, I was happy with the final script I produced. I think the final script flowed quite nicely, and the conversation didn’t sound too forced or robotic. This of course was helped by the two presenters we had, they seemed very enthusiastic, and were able to keep up with script, but sometimes missing words out. I now understand that they were just paraphrasing some things as it must have been easier to say in the moment, something that happens quite a bit on live television production. The hardest part of the day was setting up the actual set. We encountered our first problem when we couldn’t get the white boards to stay in place, this took about half an hour, to an hour out of our time to rectify. This was nobody’s fault, luckily we had Finn from AV to help us  providing metal plates to offer support and make sure they wouldn’t move. Because of this we couldn’t put the flowers around the lights which we had originally done in the first set, this was purely because we were all too nervous to touch the boards again and risk dislodging them.

The next problem we faced was the autocue. We had never practiced our show in the main studio, only the OB kit, so finding the program seemed challenging. Then when we eventually found the program it took around 4 of us to figure out how to actually make it scroll and the to get it back to the beginning. But once we had practiced this for a little bit it seemed pretty straight forward. It was also pretty easy to set the speed the autocue scrolled at for the presenters, as we only had to speed it up a little bit.

Although sceptical at first, I actually enjoyed this topic and the group I was placed with, everybody pulled their weight and I think the final piece actually came out pretty good, there was also not a lot of stress on the day which helped calm everyone down and helped us to produce a good, quality show. The things I would do differently next time include writing the script earlier so I could have a few drafts and not only one,  and also practice in my spare time writing natural sounding dialogue.

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Above is the set that we created for the actual airing of the show. We decided to keep with the table and trellis. But instead of chairs we added a sofa, for some colour, and it also added to that ‘chat show’ professional feel of the show. Instead of the blue picture we used in the rehearsal we decided to go for a tapestry. This worked out really well as it added a lot of colour to the main back wall but didn't take the focus away, as i was sceptical that it would. As the last set was lacking in the ‘adventure’, we used some climbing pictures that Ben, our guest, provided. These really brought the whole thing together as it gave an element of the show, without it being too much in the audiences face. We still kept with the blue fairly lights, as it added just that little bit of colour, and complimented the things on the wall quite nicely. 

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Finn helping us out the boards up. 

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As well as writing the script I also helped with designing the set with Laura, Sam and Alisha. We decided that we wanted quite a simplistic set combining both wildlife and adventure.

The above picture is from the set we used from rehearsal. We went for ‘the classic’ table and chairs as the centre piece for the set, then to add some colour to the bland white boards we added some blue fairy lights with same flour garlands weaved through them. We decided the wooden trellis was suitable for the background, as it made the set look more three dimensional, but also not taking the focus away from the presenters and guest. I’m pretty happy with how this set turned out, but it does still look pretty bland. It is also lacking the adventure side of things, meaning that it doesn’t really make sense as this show is all about climbing.

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This was the basic plan i worked from when i developed my script. When i was given the times, i knew that i had to find enough facts with enough detail in order to fill that time. 

The facts i decided to go with were: 

Derwent Water - This is one for the wildlife factor. But also because it is one of the major attractions that Keswick offer and out show is aimed at a tourist angle. 

Keswick Rock climbing Wall - This is the adventure aspect. I decided to put this point before the interview, for continuity, as the guest was going to talk about his life climbing and referencing this wall in particular. Also, there was going to be an insert after this piece of dialogue focusing on the wall. 

Pencil - I decided to include the fact about the pencil, as this is a pretty famous export for Keswick, and i found it pretty interesting, as a lot of people i have talked to have. Also because this was tourism show, it seemed to make sense to include something that would appeal to any ages, and any abilities (e.g disabled, elderly that might have trouble doing the above two activities), it is also somewhere i have been personally and really enjoyed.

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My Role

In the next meeting we finalised our idea. The idea that this TV broadcast show would be about the wonders of cumbria, and in this week’s episode (the one we were actually filming) would be based around Keswick, and why is is the place to go for all. 

We also discussed what roles we wished to take for the actual production part. I chose to write the script, i thought this would be challenging for me as i had only ever written scripts for short films, and the way the dialogue speaks in a short fictional film to a live broadcasted show is very different. For one the dialogue has to be upbeat in order to keep the viewers watching, what i also  noticed was in live shows the presenters are always very enthusiastic with the odd quip involved to keep the audience entertained. This always looks like it is improvised, but i came to find that it was just very good script writing, and good acting on the behalf of the presenter. 

I also chose this role as i don’t deal very well with pressure, so i liked the idea that i could have my part of the production done before it even went live. Meaning there was less chance of me messing up and putting a strain on my group. 

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Looking for props.

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After i had written the first draft of my script, i first gave it to my group so they could approve it and see if there was any changes i could make. They seemed pretty happy with it so came the rehearsal. 

When we did the rehearsal it came to my attention that i had put too much detail into the facts and it made the time run over the 5 minute mark. So i adapted it, made my house mates read and act it out, and worked out into the right time. This is something i would have not realised if we had not done a rehearsal before the actual show. 

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Research

Before embarking on my script, i did some research into:

A) How to format my script

B) The type of dialogue to use/ and how a natural conversation should flow.

It sounds easy to write a TV script, but what i found the most challenging about this is how to get a conversation to sound natural, and not robotic. 

https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/screenplaytv.pdf 

This was a very helpful resourse into helping me learn how to format my scripts, as it broke down step by step what to include and where it should go. I adapted the above template in order for it to fit into a studio, because we only had one set. 

 The second resource i found was 

http://www.zacuto.com/how-to-write-dialogue

This was incredibly helpful as it outlined how to make dialogue sound natural and effortless and not robotic. Even though this article is geared toward a film script, it still proved helpful in a TV studio scenario. In some sense the presenters are not portraying a ‘character’, but in reality they are, they are showing a much larger, full of life, enthusiastic character. One of the best pieces of advice on this article, even though it seems obvious, is to rehearse. By rehearsing your script you can see how it reads, and it is also very helpful for a live show as you can get all the timings down, so the show does not run under or other. 

To research for my script i also watched a lot of shows such as country file and Plant Earth. This is because 1, country file is a live show and 2, even though they are stating facts, they still seem to captivate they audience. This is something i knew that my script was going to need as half it was just going to be basic facts about Keswick, and i needed them to sound more impressive than they were. 

References

Charles, M (2013) ‘screenplay format for TV shows’ BBC

Remensnyder, J (2016) ‘How to write natural dialogue and give your characters a voice’ [online] Accessible: http://www.zacuto.com/how-to-write-dialogue

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First meeting

Today we had our first production meeting as a group, and talked about what ideas we could do for a show, talking both about making it interesting as possible, but also making it realistic and practical, because at the end of the day we had to film it. It wasn’t like we could go running across the UK filming the migration patterens of birds. 

We all decided that we wanted to bring both aspects of ‘wildlife’ and ‘travel and adventure’, one to make it fair on everyone in the group, but also because these two subjects have quite a lot of common ground and blend together pretty seamlessly. To capture both elements of the two courses, it was best decided that we would donate the two 30 second inserts to each course individually, so there would be no arguments about one course having priority over the other. 

As well, in this meeting we decided that the location that we wished to film was Keswick. It seemed like a pretty obvious choice as it is only a 30 minute drive from Carlisle itself, and has the mix of Derwent water for us wildlife students, and a pretty impressive rock climbing wall for the adventure students.