TRANSITION; CALL SHEETS

As a producer, it is my job to create call sheets, these will let the cast and crew know whats going on with filming and when. Looking online i found that there is a lot of detail that goes into creating call sheets. I found that a lot of high profile productions will include a lot of information on theirs and create different ones for certain members of cast and crew.

Example Call Sheet

I wanted to create a call sheet for our cast, i think it is a lot less hassle to put the location, contact details and names of everyone in one sheet for them to have so that they know what is going on. I have chosen to do more of a basic call sheet as i think where this is a smaller production we do not have to include as much detail. The most important details to include are contact details and addressed.

Draft Call Sheet

TRANSITION; PRODUCER RESEARCH

As part of my research for being a producer, i thought i would look into a specific producer and their work to try and inform mine. I have chosen Steven Moffat, mainly because whilst he is a producer, he is a writer as well, and on many shows has acted as this new role of a 'Showrunner', i thought this would be best for me to look at.

Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer, perhaps he is best known for his role as a showrunner on extremely popular shows 'Doctor Who' and 'Sherlock'. Whilst he began his career as a writer on many shows, he eventually began producing as well and he started to combine the role of producer and writer together. For example, he with Doctor Who, he was made executive producer in 2007 but he was also a writer. The way his role worked on the show, was that he was also head writer, Moffat alongside a team would devise the narrative for each series as a whole, and Moffat would write the beginning and ending episodes of each series. Other writers would then write the other episodes with Moffat as the executive producer.

As a producer, he is someone who likes to do right by the shows he is working on, and make bold and daring decisions. Back in 2015, there was a high call for a female doctor from critics and viewers. However, Moffat believed at the time that it was 'too early' to be casting a women in the role as he had become 'obsessed with Peter in the Tardis' (the current doctor).

The type of producer that Steven Moffat is, is more about creative control and freedom, rather than the organisitional roles like production schedules and call sheets. You can find that on big budget productions there will be production managers and assistants that take on these more 'admin' roles and the producers focus more on the creative side, something Moffat definitely does in his shows.

TRANSITION; JOB ROLE RESEARCH

For the Transitions unit; my role is a producer. Producers play an integral role in the tv and film industry and they are the ones who would mainly be seeing a project through from the start to the finish. They are the people who work closely with every department on a shoot, for example the director, the editor and the production staff. Roles that a producer usually takes on

- Raise money needed to fund a shoot
- Come up with the content, storylines etc, but hire a writer to follow through with the physical script
- Either create budgeting and scheduling documents (on bigger shoots there would be a production assistant to do these tasks but a producer would be working closely with them)
- Ensure that all the relevant insurances are in place for shoots
- Keep in close contact with the director to ensure everything is going as it should

Being a producer is closely associated with managerial titles; its a lot about keeping organised and knowing whats going on within each team/department at all times. Producers can spend a lot of time in an office, taking up the above organisational, more administrative tasks.

Within the 21st century, a new role within the TV industry has appeared; knowns as a 'show-runner'. this is a role that would have complete and utter control of a production, its a mixture of a writer and producer job role. This takes the creative role of a writer paired with the more managerial job of a producer and puts them together. A lot of shows, particularly sic-fi such as Doctor Who, have adopted these roles, with one person taking control of the a series, deciding what content shall go into it, and then writing a good amount of the episodes that go into it. This is something that really interest me because whilst i resonate well with because of the roles that come with it, however writing is also something that really interests me.

Looking at some research, the term 'Showrunner' is the term given normally to one of the executive producers of a programme. The main job is to 'maintain the integrity of the overall canon of the series'. A showrunner wouldn't write every episode but would have creative control of most of the narrative aspects that occur within a series.

TRANSITION; FEEDBACK AND SCRIPTING

As the producer, I wrote the script for the project, though it is a recreation it still needed heavy scripting as we had decided to change some of the scenes up. As discussed, we took a scene from the end of episode one and weaved it in and out of the opening of the same episode. It fit really well as both scenes are describing/talking about to death of Jason Blossom. I changed it up slightly by adding a few lines of dialogue, such as on page 3, the end of the conversation differs a lot in the real show, but because we wanted to make it dramatic I changed up the last line. Having Jughead say 'this town is full of secrets, they always come out' is really indicative of the tone of the overall series and I thought it fitted in well.

Feedback from Simon and tutorial;
- Test shoot to be done with fig rig, jib arm and track in order to decide what to use and what would be best on the shoot day
- Make sure we have filming permissions if anyone is in the background of our leeds castle shoot
- Make a shot list; make sure shots are separately organised so we know exactly what we are filming
- Script needs to be more detailed
- Make sure the shots we film match the voice over that is in the beginning of the script
- Montage needs more thought
- Think about transitions between montage and diner

As a producer, the main thing I had to do from this feedback was make sure the script was more detailed. After reading it back myself i did realise that i had skimmed over some parts and not made them as detailed as it should have been. I hadn't put in any detail on the actions that the actors were to take, for example facial expressions or where they would be standing etc. I went back over the script, as well as rewatched the scene from the episode in order to gain some more detail in the script. I didn't find it too difficult to make the script more detailed as i think it was more the actions they take that i had to elaborate on, for example i included how Archie and Jughead would be sitting together, and how they would react to what each other were saying through facial expressions.

Copy of Script;

TRANSITION; PROJECT CHANGES

For our transitions unit, myself, Laura, Katie and Sonia created a powerpoint presentation to demonstrate our idea to the class. We each spoke about what roles we will be undertaking as well as the approach we plan to take with the idea.

Feedback
- Liked our idea and were interested to see what we were going to do with it; particularly how we would approach the use of bold colours that they use in Riverdale
- Look at certain producers/directors/editors/DOPs as research to form a part of the unit
- Make sure we each have our own ideas as to how our version will be different from the original, how we will make it our own
- Making sure we still include some drama within the scene



What has changed
After our presentation and feedback session from both Simon and the class, I began to wonder how I can use my role of a producer to influence how we will make our recreation different from the original. Something I thought when looking back at our chosen scene, was that everything I loved about it, the stuff that created the drama such as a big police boat looking for the body and members of the town watching onwards, we had to cut for logistical reasons and I now wondered if the stuff we could film was worth going to 3 different locations for without the sense of drama you get in the original.

After bouncing some ideas around and all of us looking for some alternate scenes, I found a scene towards the end of episode one, where best friends Archie and Jughead have a conversation regarding the recent summer tragedy that was the death of Jason Blossom. I thought that with this we would be able to still incorporate the original scene we wanted to do as well. Katie suggested we could still film the opening locations (river, town shots etc) but without the actors, layering over just the voice over from Jughead where he explains what happened (Jason's death at the river), this then leads on nicely to the conversation between Jughead and Archie because the talk about what the audience would have just had explained to them in the voiceover. I think this is a much better combination of scenes for us to do; it allows us to get some great locations shots at the start, but still brings a sense of entertainment and drama with the second section. This scene will take place in the same diner we had already sourced so this also isn't a problem.

TRANSITION; PROJECT UPDATE LOCATIONS

With the transitions project there were two things that i wanted to organise and be prepared for straight away, this was
- Provisional Filming Dates
- Location Access

Based upon previous projects, locations have probably been the biggest struggle, you want to find a location that will work perfectly for the shoot, but gaining access can be a struggle. With this project we do need quite a few different locations, the hardest one in my eyes being one with a river. For this, I immediately began looking on the Kent Film Office website, I found a few different locations such as 'Haysden Country Park' in Tonbridge. Also, by the suggestion of Sonia to have a look into Leeds Castle, I managed to get into contact with one of the managers from there. After emailing them, they got back to me and confined we would be able to use their location that runs into a river! Our next step with this is to go down and do a recce to confirm the location is 100% fit for the production.

In addition to this, I am also still in ongoing contact with one of the people in charge at the original location found, 'Haysden Country Park', they have asked for copies of the script etc to know what the production is about and I am currently awaiting a decision back from them. Though we have a location almost confirmed with Leeds Castle, I have learnt from previous productions that locations can fall through, and it is imperative to have a back up plan! This is why I will be continuing to liaise with the relevant people about Haysden as this really help up - to have a second option.



Furthermore, the 2nd location we need is actually a car park; so that we can show our characters arrive at the river location, once we go and do a recce of Leeds Castle we can find out if this is something we could film there as well. However if not I have access to a farm location; it has a tarmaced car park as well as acres of land so will still work perfectly to match the Leeds Castle river location. Finally - we need a location to act as the 'Choc-litshop'. Ideally we want one to look as authentic as possible and currently are looking into using the diner that is in the Maidstone Studios, it would work really well and defiantly fit what we are trying to go for, however currently we need to find out if access can be gained and this is something that is ongoing.

TRANSITION; BRIEFING

Transition is a new unit that focuses on us choosing a field of work within TV Production to focus on; immediately I was unsure about what role i would want to take. I like the idea of being a producer, mainly because its a role that relies a lot on organisation, something i enjoy doing, however I also like the idea of being a writer; especially within the unit as it would allow us to expand on shows we have already seen, the creativity that comes with this is something i considered being worth while.

After talking more with people in my year and Simon, i decided to go forward with the role of a Producer, I defiantly think this is where my skills would overall lie and this is something i will enjoy the most. Furthermore their was the idea of a 'show-runner' which is overall a more modern role within the TV industry that brings together the roles of writer and producer, this particularly is something that resonates with me and i will be researching into this further.

Who to work with?
For this project I will be working with Sonia (Director) Katie (Editor) and Laura (DoP). We all have similar interests in the type of work we would like to produce so we definitely will work very well together. We all agreed very quickly that we wanted to recreate some scenes from Netflix's Riverdale, from all points of our roles it will be challenging but have a really good end product. There will most likely (dependent on which scenes we choose to do) be a lot of casting and locations work involved, as well as a look of work into how it will look on the camera, the show itself has a very particular and distinct look and this is something we will have to look into.