Major Project-Study Group Meeting with Sam McKeown

Today I met with Sam Mckeown, a fellow student who is also creating a series script for his major project. The idea behind this meeting was that it would give us an opportunity to share some of our ideas with each other, and also share some potentially useful information sources with each other that we have found over the course of the research stage of our script writing.
We discussed the stories we have developed thus far, as well as the kind of themes and atmosphere we want to portray through our scripts, and I felt that this really allowed for a deeper exploration of potential story routes we could each go down.

We briefly discussed the idea of genres, and Sam suggested that I think very carefully about the genre label I give my series. At the moment, I have classed my series as a Drama series, but Sam suggested that the drama label may not be enough of a descriptive way to describe my series, as there are several action sequences I have planned as well, which could in fact make my series a Drama/Thriller.
I think it is important that I fully understand the genre I will be writing for before I begin to create my script, as I will then be able to write in a style that suits whichever genre I pick.
Not having a clearly defined genre will mean I will not have a set standard of writing to follow, meaning my series may end up suffering from a "confused identity", which one episode potentially being extremely humorous, and the next being incredibly dark and serious. This could potentially be confusing for a viewer, and as such, I feel that investigating the genres of Drama and Thriller should be a priority for me, as I will then know whether I am writing for a drama, thriller or mixture of both.

We have decided to meet often in order to discuss more ideas, and the stages we are at in our projects. I have already agreed to submit the first draft of my first episode to Simon on the 1st of february, and so me and Sam have decided that we will also provide each other with a copy of the others script, so that we can critically analyse each others work.
I feel that it will always be useful to have as many eyes as possible repeatedly checking out my work, as I feel the more feedback I can get, the better my work will become.