Project Overview

As part of our show unit, we had to create a three part Webseries with the possibility of making more episodes if we wanted to. As a class, we decided to base it on a group of kids in detention. I was given the role of casting director within the group. The group was eventually split into two. I worked with Matt, Tara, Kirk, Alie, Tim, Ash, Sam and Dave. I took on the role of scriptwriter and was still in charge of casting. We called our series ‘Lines’ whilst the other group stuck with the name ‘Detention Deficit’.

I set about creating a set of realistic characters. I figured that the series would work best if we had a newcomer to the detention group. That character soon became Jake, a teen actor and musician who is new to the school. The funny thing about the character is that I got the inspiration after watching Hannah Montana with my sister. The character was called Jake Ryan, hence the reason why I called him Jake. It was after a brief confrontation with a teacher that he was put in detention. There, he comes across Taylor, the school bully. I figured that you wouldn’t have detention if you didn’t have a troublemaker. But I wanted to put a twist with his character. Instead of bullying people for the sake of it, he does it because he is insecure with himself. Outside of school, he is a perfectly behaved individual. This comes to a head in episode three where Taylor argues with Megan because of it. The next character I created was Zeke, who is always in detention because he takes the blame for his friend’s troublesome antics. He is unable to stand up for himself. I actually thought of the character whilst watching Neighbours. Anyway, the nature of him being in detention is revealed in the second episode. The friends question why he always talks about his friend, but then it is shown his friend constantly takes advantage of him. We have Megan, who is a well educated girl who is rebelling against the system. She’s used to getting what she wants at home, and at school she gets in trouble for this. I don’t actually know how I thought of her character, just that I wanted to have someone do that. The final character is Seth, who believes that a secret agent is following him. This character was used in the other group, but I wanted this version to be less paranoid. There are other characters introduced throughout the series, but these are the main ones. I knew straight away that I did not want this series to be a sitcom, such as The Inbetweeners, but instead I wanted it to have a more a dramatic approach, such as Skins.

Now that the characters had been created, I worked on some audition forms which Tara and I put around the College. I also had to sort out the model release forms which the cast had to fill in, in order for us to be allowed to film them. The auditions quickly came around and we had a total of nine people turn up to audition. It was then down to me to make the final choices, and I emailed all the cast members when I got home that evening. I also requested that they give us a copy of their timetable so that a filming timetable could be arranged.

I felt that the filming of the first episode went okay, but a lot more close-ups could've been used. Dave then appointed himself the role of director and decided that he would rewrite the script for the second episode, without even consulting me. I turned up ready to film and then learnt about that, so communication could've been better there. I felt that this was done far too close to the deadline, but I couldn't be bothered to disagree even further, so I went about making sure the cast were available to film on Monday afternoon.

I noticed that a few of the character's personalities had changed in the rewrite, but I have faith that it will all work out in the end. The final version of episode one was uploaded to youtube at the end of Friday's lesson. By the end of the night, the video had a total of two hundred and forty-two views with eleven comments. A lot of people stated that they would continue watching the series, which is what we aimed to do with this project.

I feel that I have done pretty good work with this project. I liked the script that I wrote for the first episode, but I wasn't so keen on the second and third episodes. I felt they were lacking something and never really felt the urge to keep on working on it until I wrote the perfect script. I think was because I avoided using humour to keep the pace of the episodes going. That's why I thought I should have another go at writing the third episode. I think I functioned good enough with the casting as well. I felt I made a perfect selection with the cast, though it didn't help when I went away for the weekend. I think I worked a lot better when Kirk was director because he didn't moan whenever we hadn't got something done by a certain time. With Dave, he is a lot more aggressive towards us crew members, which is inapprorpiate. I felt more willing to work with Kirk because he was polite and encouraged us to work hard, not forcing it upon us.