Major Project Unit- Submission Day and roundup

Todays the day! I have handed in the Major Project Report and Compilation of all 6 episode scripts and treatments for Ascension. I am very happy with the way this project turned out, and I definitely feel that my experiences working with my Script Editor and redrafting my scripts often has allowed me to create an industry standard document that gives an accurate perspective of exactly what my series is about.
I feel that I am much better prepared for life after this course if I am to pursue a career in screenwriting, and I definitely feel that I now have a much clearer idea about what does and doesn't work when writing a story.
I am excited to see where my journey takes me.

Major Project Unit- Raindance's 6 Rules of Screenplay Research- Consultants

The raindance website contains a lot of useful information geared towards filmmakers and screenwriters, and in the process of scouring the website for any kind of relevant and useful information, I came across this article which details 6 rules for successfully conducting research for a writing project;
http://www.raindance.org/6-rules-of-screenplay-research/

Although a lot of these rules and conventions described in the article aren't at all foreign to me, and they're processes I've applied to this project , there was one particular aspect of the article that I realize I haven't applied to this project, which I feel may have benefitted Ascension.
The 4th rule mentions how important it can be to speak to relevant people when conducting research, and while reading this article, I realized that I haven't really obtained any research material from speaking with an actual physical person on this project.
Although I have used a lot of online sources in order to learn certain things relating to this project that I have been unsure about, I haven't spent much time pursuing  knowledge from actual people that may have expertise in certain areas I have been investigating.
For example, I have been studying the effects and symptoms of cocaine addiction quite a bit in order to create a realistic and believable downward spiral for Alex Fairwether, and I have mostly been accomplishing this by checking out such websites as FRANK and NHS health sites.
One way I could have approached this research was by getting in contact with somebody over a health forum or drug forum that has been affected by cocaine addiction, either through their own substance abuse or by having a loved-one suffer through it.
Speaking to someone and receiving that raw human emotion and more description about the subject may have given me much more substantial research material which I could have used to further improve my work.

Contacts that writers are in touch with that are experts in various subjects are known as "consultants" and a lot of writers will often contact these consultants whenever they are writing about something they are unsure about. The consultant is usually an expert in a certain area and can therefore provide the relevant important information the writer would need in order to create a realistic and authentic piece of writing.
If I am to succeed as a writer, I feel that it may be important for me to begin contacting and creating consultants of my own, ready for when I enter the profession outside of UCA's walls.

Major Project Unit- My first Treatment Document and Feedback.

Below is the treatment document I created for episode 3 of Ascension.

Episode 3- Sabbatical

The Feedback I received for this treatment was very positive. My actual writing style was praised, however I was told that there doesn't seem to be a lot happening storywise at the Lodge, and was asked to improve on this by making more things happen there.
A change that I was asked to perform before uploading this treatment here was to remove the photos that I had included. The reason for this was that they didn't really add anything to the document itself, which I completely understand. Removing them was not an issue at all.
I am very happy with the way my first treatment went, and I am pleased that my writing style was suitable enough to get the point of my story across. Now that I am aware of the kind of writing style required when writing a treatment document, I am confident enough that I feel I could do a decent job on the treatments for other episodes.

Major Project Unit- Episode Titles and Justification

Something I have been taking into consideration recently are the titles that I will be giving each episode of Ascension. Giving specific titles episodes makes it easy for me to differentiate between each episode, and also helps viewers do the same. Episode titles also helps me as a screenwriter set the tone of what the episode will be about.
In this post, I will be justifying why I have given each episode each specific title.

Episode 1: Gathering.- Quite self explanatory. Each character meets at the lodge, therefore "gathering."
Episode 2: Nose Candy.- Nose Candy is a slang term of street name for Cocaine. Since episode 2 revolves around Alex's decent into addiction and usage of Cocaine, I felt that this fit perfectly.
Episode 3: Sabbatical.- A sabbatical is when an individual takes a period of time away from work in order to achieve something. In this episode, Cindy smashes her boss in the face with a keyboard and storms out of her work place. The usage of the word "sabbatical" is quite ironic, and a very formal way of explaining what has happened.
Episode 4: Revelations.- This episode revolves around the idea of Jairo being influenced by his heavily religious father, and enduring his abuse. Jairo eventually discovers that he is strong enough to overpower his father, therefore coming to the "revelation" that he no longer has to suffer. It could also be seen as a reference to the bible's Book of Revelations.
Episode 5: Dodgy Dealings.- This episode revolves around the story of Mitch as he becomes a drug dealer. Pretty obvious why this episode is called what it is.
Episode 6: Clarity.- This episode revolves around Stanley's backstory with Dreizer. The title is in reference to the "clarity" of the diamonds which are an important story piece in this episode. It could also be a reference to the stories secrets being revealed, and character's intentions and motivations becoming known, therefore becoming clear.

I feel that these titles are adequate enough to show what each episode is about, and are subtle enough that they can be interpreted by viewer's in different ways, but relatable to the episode enough that they don't seem at all out of place.

Major Project Unit- BBC: Writing TV Drama and the importance of storytelling

I recently found this webpage created by the BBC which discusses what makes a great TV drama.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writers-lab/genre-toolkits/writing-tv-drama
The website emphasises the importance of including scenes that aren't redundant, and making sure that dialogue compliments the story, and isn't used to tell it instead. This is something I have been told in the past, and the fact a major corporation like the BBC is reiterating this sentiment just suggests to me that this is something every screenwriter should know.
This concept is something I have been doing my best to incorporate into my own work recently. At a recent tutorial, with my script editor, we discussed the possibility of making Dreizer more of a silent antagonist in order to put more emphasis on his actions as opposed to his dialogue.
I will be experimenting with this idea, particularly in episode 6.

Major Project Unit- Women in Business

A major story element I wish to explore in the 3rd episode of Ascension is Cindy working at a finance agency, and her struggle to maintain equality in her workplace. Her boss, Mr. Sherwood is revealed to be a sexist, bigoted man who strongly believes that women have no place working with business and finances, and should instead work in menial positions such as cleaning and child-care. Of course, this philosophy is severely outdated, and women have proven to have formidable business skills and have excelled in their work.

Since the Suffrogette Movement and women's rights activists taking a stand, their have been some improvements in the way women are represented in business, however even today some women believe that they're degraded and not treated as fairly as men in the work place, with some reporting lower wages,  less opportunities for employment, and having to work harder than men in order to maintain and thrive in the workplace. With this in mind, I decided to conduct a small investigation into women in the business world. The main reason for this was so that I could present a realistic depiction of sexism in the work place, and one of the ways I could learn about this was to see how the position of women in the work place has evolved over time.

"Women in Business: A Historical Perspective" documents the rise of women in business due to a feminist movement, and claims that the watershed moment for this happened in the 1970s (which coincidently happens around the time my series takes place) and makes the claim that by the late 1980s, women owned half of all american businesses, indicating a major shift in percentage of which gender owned what amount of business.

Although I do want to present Sherwood as a sexist man, I would have to be very careful with how this is done. I would prefer to have Sherwood have subtle jabs at Cindy for her gender, rather than outright telling her that he doesn't value her due to her being a woman. Having Sherwood be a straight out sexist male, mistreating Cindy would be too "disney villain"ish and afterall, if she was mistreated enough, Cindy could just quit.

The reason for Sherwood bringing Cindy into the company when he clearly doesn't like women very much is due to influence from the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union who has been on his case about hiring more women into his workforce.
Many unions have a strong belief that every person should have equal opportunities, regardless of gender, race and disability, and therefore it is quite realistic that Sherwood would agree to hire a female employee to keep the union happy.

Major Project Unit- Man Arrested for Keeping Falkland's gun.

I recently came across this news article about a former soldier who kept a weapon from his time in the Falkland's conflict as a souvenir, and has since been arrested for having it. Although this only has minor relation to my project, I think it adds a sense of realian my character; Stanley is treated with hostility for keeping his own Falkland's handgun on him on his return to England.
This says to me that the way in which my other characters treat Stanley and react to him bringing the gun to the lodge is justified.

Major Project Unit- Condensing my Treatment Documents.

I have recently begun writing my treatment documents for episodes 3,4, and 5 of Ascension. The purpose of a treatment document is to provide a reasonably detailed plan of the story that you want to tell in a film or television series, before an actual script has been formed. 

Due to the nature of what a treatment document is used for, there needs to be a compromise made by the writer between inserting enough detail that the reader understands the story to a reasonable degree, and not too much detail that the reader becomes buried in useless information.

Below is a segment of the first treatment draft I created:

As you can see, I go into a lot of detail that is actually quite unneeded. 

The purpose of a treatment document is to provide a sort of "trailer" for the script, detailing only the most important events of the script. In the uncondensed version of my treatment, I go into way too much detail describing the scenery and how characters move, and if this is the case, I might as well just write the script itself.

Below is a more condensed version of the above segment:

Although I still use a lot of detail in the condensed version, some of the more irrelevant details have been removed. A treatment document for a 25 minute film should ideally be around 5 pages, and cutting useless details such as the ones I eliminated in this condensed version should allow me to reach this amount of pages.