Totally Maisy - Locations

The locations for Totally Maisy are quite simple. There are a couple of bedrooms, a living room, a street, an exterior of a cafe and a school.

The hardest thing to find will be a school. We have sent and email to the secondary school that we went to to see if they would allow us to use the school during half term. There are only a few scenes at school which means we would only need access for 1 day. The locations we need in the school is a corridor, 2 class rooms and the exterior.

Fingers crossed they will let us use it. We know the school really well and so we can already imagine how the scenes would look.

Maddie's Idea - Update

Today me and Maddie had a production meeting to talk about her project and make a few decisions.

The first decision we needed to make was what were we going to call this series. We batted around a few ideas but we didn't want it to be to cringy or too boring. We settled on Totally Maisy. I really like this title as it explains that the show is all about Maisy and it is also young and fun which is needed when aiming a show at 11 to 15 year olds.

We also tossed around a few ideas to do with the title sequence. I showed her the video I made of title sequence we could take influences from. We decided that maybe we could mix a live action sequence with an animated sequence.

Maddie is going away for 2 weeks now and I have said that I will continue crewing, I will make a poster to send out to performance schools as soon as they go back to school and I will continue to do research on the format.

Totally Maisy Title Sequence

This is a video I put together of title sequences for shows with a similar target audiences to Totally Maisy.

Update on Crewing

After sending my advert around to 14 different unis on Sunday night I have already started to get some interest from students which is brilliant. 

I have also created a Film and TV pro advert which again I have already received applications from and so at the moment I am quite optimistic that we will be able to get a talented professional crew together. 

I will make sure that I keep in contact with these applicants throughout the project to make sure I don't lose them.  

Dan's Production Meeting

Today we had a production meeting to see where we were all at.

I had a meeting with Dan first to discuss a few things and tell him what I had been up to. I was able to confirm that we have 2 people on board to help out with costumes and a graphics designer to help create a research document for our package. We discussed how we wanted the overall package to look and and what we wanted/needed to include. I have created a schedule of when we need things done by and to show when people are away so that we know when certain people are unavailable.

Dan was impressed with my progress but we quickly realised that we needed to see the script to understand the updated story and characters, so we went to see Dean.

The meeting with Dean went quite well, he showed Dan the script so far and we discussed the locations and the characters so that I can begin casting and location hunting.

I feel like we have already got alot done with this project and time is definitely on our side, so this should be a really professional amazing piece of work as long as we keep on top of stuff like we have been doing.  

Crewing

Today I have been really focused on crewing and I have decided to set up a crewing blog to help me advertise the roles I am looking for. The roles are the same as the ones I have put on Star Now but the go into a bit more detail about each of the projects.

I have gathered together a list of local unis and tomorrow I will send off an email to each of them asking to pass the links for both the Star Now advert and the Blog to their students to see if anyone would like to be involved.

Her are the links to both Star Now and the Blog:

Star Now Advert for WW2 Short film – http://www.starnow.co.uk/Casting-Calls/Stylists-wanted/Hair-stylists/crew_needed_for_ww2_short_film.htm

Star Now Advert for Teen Comedy Drama Pilot Episode – http://www.starnow.co.uk/Casting-Calls/Crew-wanted/Sound-and-music/crew_needed_for_teen_comedy_drama.htm

Blog featuring all roles - http://uca-crewing.blogspot.co.uk/

Starting on Dan's Idea

I am really excited to be working on Dan's idea as a period piece is something I have never worked on before and is definitely out of my comfort zone.

With Dan's idea I can begin casting straight away as the roles are for adults rather than children, all I need to do is get the character profiles from Maddie and Dean, who are co writing the film, and I can begin putting out adverts and setting up auditions.

I have been really focused on getting a crew together for Dan's especially focusing on hair, make-up and wardrobe as these are 3 key elements which will let us down if we do not get them right.

I have also been looking for musicians who would be able to lend their music to the film as the backing track to the whole film.

I need to have a production meeting with Maddie, Dean and Dan to talk about locations and decide where we need to be looking and what we need to be looking for.

Dean's Idea

Dean's idea is called If I Was King. It is an office based comedy drama which would be suitable for Channel 4. The story will show 2 colleagues competing for a job with the main character getting the job by playing dirty. The main character will also have an office romance with the office sweetheart.

Dean is planning on writing it, producing it, directing it, staring in it and writing and recording the music. Obliviously I think this is far to much for him to take on but I will help him find potential contacts.

Starting on Maddie's idea

So I have begun working on Maddie's idea. As Maddie's idea involves cast members who are still of school age it will be hard to cast during the school holidays and so I am going to leave the majority of casting until the beginning of September.

With Maddie's idea she only wants to write the episode and take on the production secretary role in the production and so I need to find a director, an editor and some camera people to be involved in the project. She also wants the program to be quite animated and graphicy and so I am trying decide who I would need to add graphics on top of the piece. I am still unsure if it would be an animator, a graph designer or an illustrator but I will talk to a few different people to help me decide.

I have created a Star Now advert to get crew involved and I have also emailed a few people who I have worked with in the past who I thought may be interested in working on this project.

One of the main things I have done so far is to research into the genre to help figure out the style of the show and get inspiration for the title sequence and theme song.

I need to have a production meeting with Maddie to brainstorm a name for this show and to get the rest of the character profiles so that I can begin casting the adult roles.

At the moment I feel like I have things under control but I will feel more confident when we have the big things like cast, locations and crew set in place.

Back To Work After a Short Break

Today me, Maddie, Dean and Dan had a meeting to discuss what we wanted to do for our final major project. I knew that I didn't want to write or direct anything and so I thought there would be no point me coming up with an idea. I am much more interested in producing and so I decided to listen to each of their ideas and decide which ones I wanted to work on. I knew that I wouldn't be able to produce all 3 but also I knew it would be a tough decision to decide who's projects to work on as they are all my really good friends and I wanted to help them all out.

Maddie presented her idea of a pilot episode for a new teen comedy drama based around a girl at school who's parents have recently split up. The story would follow the girl and her friends planning for the back to school disco and obsessing over boys as well as the girl finding out her mother was dating again and the man she was dating just happened to be her history teacher. 

I liked this idea as I knew exactly what Maddie wanted to achieve and I knew that we would work well together.

Dan's idea was based on love letters his uncle had sent during the war. His idea was for him to direct a short film about a couple sending love letters during WW2. The couple would be sending letters but then the women would suddenly stop receiving letters from her sweetheart and begin to worry. At the same time she would start up a romance with a local boy but when the man from war turns up one day she is forced to make a choice between the two men.

I really liked this idea as I have never done anything like it before and I knew that as it would be a costume piece that it would be a real challenge to make the film look authentic and as it is my final project at uni I need to try and push and challenge myself.

Dean's idea was to write a pilot episode for a new comedy drama based in an office. It would follow the main protagonist competing for a job promotion against the office sweetheart and the office nob.

I did like Dean's idea but whilst talking to him I realised that there wasn't really a big enough role for me to take on as her already knew some of the cast he wanted, where he wanted to shoot which came with all of the relevant props and costumes, hair and make up would all be sorted by the cast. I will support Dean and give him and contacts or advice/help he needs but I will not be able to produce the whole thing for him.