S5105157- Individual Reflection

In this individual reflection, there will be a focus on the process of making the script and
how the communication amongst the group provides a significance, however, has been
altered throughout production. This, therefore, led my group to negotiate and extinguish
any glaring conflicts to create the script. This in itself was a long process, producing conflict
in communication, organisation and the choice of roles too. This suggests how this is a
significance in group work as “communication involves the creation of meaning in the
listener, the transfer of information and thousands of potential stimuli”(Rayudu 2009, pg
13), this further explores how without the group negotiation, there is a struggle in
communication. To overcome this conflict, we worked as a collective to make the script and
the group itself a success.

In the beginning, one of the tasks that my group needed to complete was the script; this
was the main element in our production as it devised the genre, narrative and premise of
our film. We had one of our directors, who later became a director of photography, to write
the bulk of the script, although all group members took a section each to explore that the
narrative would be. Once we handed in this initial draft our group mainly got critical
feedback rather than positive. We knew this would happen to owe to the lack of
development in the characters, the comedy and also the format; we did the draft in a word
document but it needed to be in the proper format using Celtx. Many of our peers believed
the comedy was more cringy than funny, as well as needed more depth in the characters,
having a more built layout such as Aristotle’s three act structure. This in itself created a
dilemma for our group as we all needed to properly compromise and come up with a
favourable solution. Our main problems within the script were the layout, conflict and the
characters, especially as the director and the DoP disagreed on a character, leading to
conflict within the group.

Feelings

At this time, I felt very unorganised owing to the lack of improvement on the script. As a
producer, I wanted my group to be efficient and to constantly communicate with ideas and
updates, I even gave my own notes, on what can be improved and ideas that we could
embed, to the director who took control on the script after the initial draft. From doing the
Myers-Briggs test, I believe the result reflected on my personality as I was identified as a
Protagonist because of how I “find it natural and easy to communicate with others”
especially in a small group. Moreover, one of my aim as a producer was to help “bring ideas
together and communicate them as a common goal with eloquence”(Anon. 2019). The main
problem with our group was how we were lacking in creativity and felt very uncollaborative
owing to the negative feedback to properly grasp onto the narrative as we didn’t feel
confident within our work. This made me feel frustrated with our work as I felt there wasn’t
any communication within our group at that time because we didn’t know how to use our
feedback effectively.

Evaluation

It took a while to successfully communicate and to also have the script eventually come
together. As a collective, we were all suffering from a lack of ideas. One of the main bodies
 S5105157- Individual Reflection

of conflict was how the director and DoP disagreed on one particular character. One wanted
a character called the ‘Southbourne Shanker’ as a henchman, however, the director of
photography wanted to include a therapist for comedic effect. The fact that the director
and DoP disagreed on the script and weren’t backing down on their suggestions this,
therefore, implied how we needed to compromise fast to prevent any further conflict at
such an early time in the production phase. Furthermore, as well as not deciding on this
character, we then struggled to create an interesting piece of conflict because we were
unable to create ideas owing to the character dilemma and weren’t given as many
suggestions. Because of our lack of research in comedy scripts, our group should have
ideally “begin with the character and the story.” And how we should have no begun “with
an idea then look for the character and a story to illustrate it”(Phillips 1999, pg.4),
highlighting the importance of the characterisation. This left our group with a lack of
communication and preventing us moving forward with our film because of this dilemma, as
we were supposed to start developing a shot list and storyboard, however, we were unable
to proceed because of the lack of creative flow.

As a group we came to a conclusion that we needed to finally negotiate as a collective, not

just amongst the director and DoP, we wanted to make a decision as a whole as we all
participated with the script. This is where we started to negotiate so that we were able to
reach an agreement. I felt our group went through a distributive negotiation owing to how
the director and director of photography had conflicting ideas on the characters; to improve
this, we should have had an integrative negotiation because we needed to come up with a
compromise to heighten trust and flexibility which is what I think we needed to improve our
communication. Although, we did have good experiences within this time of production. We
used our initiative and went location scouting, we did this quite early on because we
wanted this to help us visualise the location and images to see if this experience would
spark ideas, I believe this helped us envision the set and the characterisation.

Analysis

Owing to our negative experiences, we needed to manage the conflict in a more

professional way. This is evident in Thomas-Kilmann work as he explores the individual
behaviour in conflicted situations. I felt our group had complications especially amongst the
director and DoP, which prevented any improvement in the production phase; they needed
to either find an alternative or compromise to, therefore, be assertive and cooperative.
Eventually, both of these group members found a mutually acceptable agreement by both
stating their points and communicating to the rest of the group to decide as a collective.
This suggests how this mutual agreement succumbs to a cohesive group, this in itself
highlights how “performance and productivity are higher in the case of a cohesive
group”(Rayudu 2009, pg. 384).

We decided to get in contact with one of the lecturers who taught us in the previous
semester. We all agreed to this as we wanted an external opinion to help with the
development of the story itself and also was hoping to get tips on how to improve our
script, as none of our group had any experience with writing a comedy script before. This
concluded with the lecturer recommending us to include an origin story to heighten the
superhero aspect and also more dialogue amongst the character to develop more humour
 S5105157- Individual Reflection

and characterisation. Moreover, she gave us positive feedback on the presence of the story
we had so far which gave us more confidence in what we were doing. Subsequently, this
communication also helped us conclude the problematic situation within the group of the
other character. What we were lacking in our script was a “character compass”, this is
because we didn’t have the “depth, complexity and detail”(Moritz 2001, pg 73) in our
characterisation, owing to the lack of communication in our group. We ultimately decided
to remove the character altogether and reach a negotiation; this led us to develop the
narrative amongst the characters that we already created as we were making a complex
story for only a seven-minute film.

Conclusion

What would’ve improved our communication, especially when making the script was
looking at more film and possibly comedy script examples. This would’ve been important as
we would have been able to identify key conventions in what makes a successful comedy.
Although, we looked into Deadpool (Miller 2016) owing to the fourth wall breaks. However,
we should’ve focused more on films like Kick Ass (Vaughn 2010) which has a similar
narrative to our film and also a similar target audience. Moreover, to provide more
extensive knowledge on superheroes, my group and I should’ve researched The Dark Knight
(Nolan 2008) as we were mainly inspired by this film especially the origin story, which we
should have researched and explored in more depth. As well as this, our group should have
put emphasis on the use of camera angles and other conventions to extend our knowledge
to improve our scriptwriting. Additionally, as a producer, I should’ve communicated more
with others to ask them for external help as we only asked one person for help. This shows
how we needed to present the script to various people within our target audience to see
whether they found it humorous. For the comedy script, the audience’s reaction plays a
significant role as you “must capture the audience’s interest in the opening
minutes”(Phillips 1999, pg.151), therefore implying with our film we needed to make the
short film funny in the opening few minutes to draw the audience in. Also, making a solid
plan would’ve made our script more efficient in the first place, I believe this would’ve
prevented the problem in communication and the outcome of the script.

Action Plan

If we were able to do this again, the group as a collective would have researched more
thoroughly into the genre, comedy, and what type of comedy would entertain the target
audience. This implies how as a group we should’ve researched into various comedies and
which identified conventions would have been more acceptable. Moreover, I believe the
group should’ve only had one group member to take control of the script with the feedback
from the other group members. Otherwise having the whole group write the script
eventually becomes a script with various tenses and different voices as it becomes more
complicated than it needed to be. I think the most useful person to have completed the
script was our first assistant director, who I think portrayed the best voice for a comedy
script. I believe when making the script was when my group struggled the most with
communicating as we spent too long on the script to make sure it was successful which
prevented us to multitask and do other work as we weren’t fully prepared during the
process of making the script. To conclude, my group and I should’ve focused more on the
 S5105157- Individual Reflection

research before going straight into the writing practice to prevent any complications in our
communication and cohesiveness. As a producer, I am hoping that in future projects I am
able to identify conflicts in groups before they escalate, as I believe communication is one of
the key aspects in group work.

Anon., 2019. Free personality test [online]. 16Personalities. Available from:

http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test [Accessed 22 May 2019].

Deadpool, 2016 [Film]. Directed by Tim Miller, 20th Century Fox.

Kick Ass, 2010 [Film]. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, Universal Pictures.

Moritz, C., 2001. Scriptwriting for the Screen [online]. Florence, USA, UNITED STATES:
Routledge. Available from: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bournemouth-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=4643282 [Accessed 25 May 2019].

Phillips, William H, 1999. Writing Short Scripts [Book]. Second. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press.

Rayudu, C. S., 2009. Communication [online]. Mumbai, INDIA: Global Media. Available from:
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bournemouth-
ebooks/detail.action?docID=3011271 [Accessed 24 May 2019].

The Dark Knight, 2008 [Film]. Directed by Christopher Nolan, Warner Bros. Pictures.
DIARY ENTRIES- Creative Collaboration

1
ENTRY NUMBER:1
DATE: 27/01/19

We had our first group meeting. We met quite early on into to production to help gather
our initial ideas and see everyone’s train of thoughts for our film. At this point no one had
an idea of a narrative for the film however we did decide on a genre. We wanted to either
do a horror or a comedy, however we believed that a comedy will suit the audience viewing
and more approachable towards this audience. Also, we decided on which role everyone is
going to have throughout the process of this film, this helped us to be more organised
through this production stage.

I really liked this experience as it gave me comfort into what I was doing because I felt like
this new group was so much more organized than my last group. I liked how was sorted out
the roles in the group immediately to avoid communication and also the genre. The group
itself are all interactive and able to listen to everyone’s ideas, the only problem with this
role picking is how we have two directors, which personally I feel will be quite difficult.

2
ENTRY NUMBER: 2
DATE: 29/01.19

In this meeting, we came up with the initial ideas for our pitches. We had to create three
pieces of narrative, therefore we created these vague ideas that can be potential for our
film. One idea is of a protagonist Garry who has a small hand, we would make a film based
on his life. Another was to create a parody of horror films, then the final idea which was to
have a hometown superhero who believes he has powers. This meeting was quite quick and
we all collaborated to develop this ideas which I found quite nice as previously in other
group work I have experienced a lack of collaboration with film groups.

3
ENTRY NUMBER:3
DATE:4/02/19

This meeting was to go in further depth on the three pieces of narrative, we produced a
power point on all the three ideas. For this, we created a full narrative and went into depth
with the characterisation. Moreover, we started to look at location and also created a
logline and tagline to emphasis our ideas. We felt confident and on task with our work.
I felt this meeting was good as we communicated all really well and included all our ideas,
this made me feel good as this gave me more confidence in sharing my own points and
ideas for the film. This also motivated me to help my other peers into looking at their ideas
and suggest my own opinion.

4
ENTRY NUMBER:4
DATE:11/02/19

We gave our pitches last week, and decided that our strongest idea was the Bourneknight,
our whole group agreed on this idea, therefore we started on our script draft. For this we
split into three groups and wrote the three acts. We all sat there and gave each other some
help with descriptions and one liners. Also, we developed the characters further to help
visualize their appearance and mannerisms whilst creating the script.

I felt this was quite a productive session, although the majority of the group didn’t feel that
well therefore it wasn’t as interactive as I would’ve hoped. Although we kept in
communication with each other throughout the week to keep adding ideas for the script.

In future, I need to motivate myself more in the group and also try to contribute more
people, especially Rory who hasn’t been able to interact with the group more. Moreover, by
looking at the script, I want to express my own opinion, especially the ending , this will be
my task for this week.

5
ENTRY NUMBER:5
DATE:19/02/19
We created an official group chat to gain more communication in our group, also if we
wanted anymore crew on the film set we are going to include dates and keeping everyone
updated on what we are doing. We also handed in a draft of our script, our group mainly got
critical feedback rather than positive which we knew that it would happen owing to lack of
comedy and also the layout of our script.

It made me feel that we were on task with our work, we just needed to work together a bit
more on the script and start to properly compromise with each other as we were struggling
with the lay out, characters and the conflict.

After our feedback we went location scouting around Bournemouth. We did this quite early
on because we wanted this to help us visualize where we would film and thought it would
help us with our script and also proof of concept; we decided to film in Southbourne for our
exterior scenes as its slightly less busy than Boscombe or Bournemouth town centre. This
also helped us decide where the big fight scene would be, leading us to email people such as
the Football Stadium, Athletics Centre and Bournemouth International Centre.

6
ENTRY NUMBER:6
DATE: 26/02/19

We had another go at our script, however Chloe and Josh disagreed on a character. We
struggled to get the conflict within the piece, therefore we included the Southbourne
Shanker, however Josh thought that using a therapist instead would be better. Owing to
how both the directors disagreed on this key section of our script made us quickly
compromise this situation to help prevent arguments.

It was a bit annoying when the group couldn’t decide a solution for this, especially when we
needed to get everything else done. To make me feel like I participated in this, I gave them
my own notes for the script, even though it wasn’t my role I wanted to help this dilemma.

I decided that it would be useful to email one of our lecturers from the previous semester
Max, as she specializes in scriptwriting. We wanted more tips on how to improve our script
and see if there was any glaring details. She gave us tips on how to improve the comedy/
superhero aspect, therefore including an origin story and more dialogue, she liked the
presence of the story that we have developed so far, this gave us more confidence in what
we were doing and helped us decide to get rid of the therapist and the Southbourne
Shanker altogether.

7
ENTRY NUMBER:7
DATE:5/03/19

We had our first group meeting without Rory, who left the course and university, leaving us
with only four people in our group. We thought this would be fine because we can always
ask people to help as part of the crew when filming. At this meeting we looked at dates of
filming and when we would hold auditions. As well as this we split up different roles for all
of us to do. I needed to book the dates for auditions, do the call sheet and all the
storyboards, during this week.

I felt quite stressed because I felt like we didn’t have enough time, especially because we
didn’t have a shot list or storyboards done yet, or even a cast which I found quite stressful.
Moreover we were planning on filming at the end of March which would’ve been too soon,
because of the lack of work that is complete, I felt like we didn’t have enough time to do any
of it.

8
ENTRY NUMBER:8
DATE: 14/03/19

This was reading week so we had a group call to see how everyone was doing, we reflected
on what we have done so far, for example I completed the call sheet and was in the process
on doing the storyboard and also I filled out the council form for the Athletics Club and
Jason did the Risk Assessment which was useful to have done. Josh was halfway through
with the shot lists, so I therefore felt on track with our work. This positivity in our group was
due to how we also extended our filming to the beginning of April so we had more time to
prepare all the pre-production elements.

I felt on track at this meeting, however once I got Josh’s shot list, I found out how they
weren’t as detailed for a seven minute film. Because of this, Chloe had to put more detail in
the shot lists and this meant that I had to do the storyboards quickly. This also made me
more stressed because of the lack of time that I had to do my part. We had to organize even
more to get the work done, owing to the lack of time that we had.

9
ENTRY NUMBER:9
DATE:19/03/19

We handed in our shot list and storyboard, with the storyboards I only managed to do a
rough sketch because I was ill and I didn’t have enough time to complete this, I felt like we
were on task in this seminar and I believe we had a good discussion with Simon as well as
our peers. Also, we managed to get our main actor for our film which was really good.
Although, there was some conflict in the group, because we originally had two directors,
however we believed that this wouldn’t work, so we decided that Josh would be Director of
Photography instead.

Personally, I needed to completely complete the storyboard then I would be able to

organize myself and the group more as a producer, Jason will also be able to help me with
this process by doing the script breakdown. Hopefully this week I am able to do the call
sheets, help with the location recce and have heard back from the Athletics Club.

10
ENTRY NUMBER:10
DATE:27/03/19

We had a meeting and worked as a collective to make sure everything is completed and
organized who is doing what for filming as well as any production stuff that needed to be
completed. We completed the Risk Assessment and sent it off, and have seen what
everyone else has done and given feedback and what we need doing before filming the next
week.

I felt comfortable, yet stressed because we still had work to do yet we had time. I gave
myself plenty of work to do to organize everything as I am the producer. I was glad that we
were all on task. From this week, my group and I keep carry on this good communication
and keep up the work, the things I did was making sure the call sheet and moodboards were
up to date, as well as organizing different times for the actors. Moreover, owing to the fact
we had a small group, we asked around for more crew. This led to us having Brendan as our
sound guy and Ryan as a cinematographer, this made us more confident in our work and
helped us by having more intense support.