Imogen Polycarpou TV Production Blog

In the beginning I was very nervous choosing the scriptwriting major project because of all the work required. But I was, and I still am, confident that I can do it. I began planning who my characters would be and the pilot episode, to be prepared and able to show Simon something to have feedback on it. My original idea was a Greek Cypriot family moving to London with their daughter going to uni and their two younger kids still in school. I was excited to write something about a Greek Cypriot family as they are very different from the portrayal of Greek American in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But, when I sat and wrote a quick draft of the pilot episode I felt that the storyline wasn't going anywhere and the humour was not that well either. The first pilot episode I wrote was showing the family arriving in London and unpacking their stuff which revealed something odd about them.  Not sure how to change it and make it more interesting, I decided on a channel, E4, and took a closer lo...

My ideas for my billboard: - i wanted to introduce characters - provide information to my audience - give them a taste of what to expect: weed brownies, sex scandals and greeks - i chose the title as a poster - gets straight to the point: based in a house with many characters - focus on billboards, posters and bus ads - portrays the humour of the show and its bizarreness As photoshop is not my strongest point or my area of focus, I still wanted to create something which showed what my sitcom was about and give the audience a hint of what to expect. Below are the first set of ad's which I made: After showing Simon my billboards out he pointed out the inconsistency of the ads. Agreeing that either I use real life images or sketches/cartoons, I opted to focus on cartoons. Likewise,although E4 is a channel that would discusses issues such as sex and drugs, I was not able to find any ads from previous shows that would show the marijuana plant or sex cards (therefore I remov...

As my sitcoms is for E4, I decided to have a look at how previous E4 shows advertised their shows through posters.  Below are posters from certain shows I chose to analyse: Friday Night Dinner (Family) - plain coloured background - all four main characters - parents standing behind children; like a family portrait - kids doing something silly, mum looking fed up and the dad uninterested -  represents their personalities and the mischief they get up to at dinner Fresh Meat (Students) - bright neon colours --> group photo - either house, wall, set or city as the background Chewing Gum  - Yellow is the main theme colour in most posters - main character posing and smiling with a write up on details - one poster has the other main charcters with the title on top - Netflix posters show the council state in which it takes place in, in the background with bright colours over powering it Inbetweeners  - black and white - all four ...

With the focus of my major project on screenwriting my book gives in depth analysis of my episodes and characters. A sitcom designed for E4 should look like it belongs with E4. I researched the font used for E4 and applied that typography to my book. As for the colour, yes the main colour is purple, but I did I made the choice of not having a colourful background in my book as it did not match the look I want - simple and chic but I decided to make the colour of the writing purple. As E4 has its own font it created - I downloaded it to use for my book. Below are screenshots of a page with the E4 font and colour: With a lot of consideration and more research I decided to change the font of the book. After I downloaded E4 font and added it to In Design I found it very difficult to actually read what I was writing. Also, the look of the writing was not very clear. Although this effects the branding, I researched and found out the the font used is called ITC American Typew...

When it came to make the book, I wanted to make it believable that it is something which does or could belong to E4. I did research on what it means to brand your product as well as the font used in E4 which is what I used in my book and my posters. Branding is used for promotion. Typically, when you do a master or an ad for shows it contains the logo of the channel, the name of your show, colourful to grab the audience's attention, a clear layout with either small images or one main image and the date of release. For E4, its brand identity is having the logo on the bottom right hand side, the colour purple and its own font which is typically ITC American Typewriter. Why do you need to brand? - clearly delivers the message - confirms credibility - emotionally connects your target prospects with your product or service - motivates - creates user loyalty Branding is a major part in the marketing sector of your show and must relate to the needs and wants of your customer...

Why Greek Gods as episode tittles?? Each God plays a role in the way the world is run. With the sitcom focusing around a Greek Cypriot family, I found it fitting to name the episode after them. The twelve Gods of the Greek are known as the Olympians and they are the ones who guided every aspect of human life. Likewise there are minor gods who played a role as well. Brief information on them: The Twelve Olympians:  Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation and was always depicted as the most beautiful and desirable woman. Apollon was the Greek god of prophecy and oracles, music, song and poetry, archery, healing, plague and disease and the protection of young. Depicted as a handsome young man with long hair. Ares was the Greek god of war, battle, courage, and covil order. Depicted as a mature, beardered warrior armed for battle. Artemis was the Greek goddess of hunting, the wilderness and wild animals. Along with goddess of childb...

The following synopsis are very details and scene to scene description of episode 2 to 6. Episode Two   One early gloomy Saturday morning, Andy is dressed in her yoga outfit enjoying her morning routine of drinking her luke warm water with honey and lemon. Sitting on the kitchen table is Pappou Andrea munching away on his toast dripping with honey moaning that his breakfast doesn’t taste the same without his home brewed Zivania. Uncle Panny, laughingly suggested they make their own Zivania, to which Pappou Andrea agrees in a heartbeat. Hara is sitting next to 3 empty mugs and sipping way on her fourth cup of coffee too nervous and jittery for her first day of university while Kotchy is peacefully eating his cereal in his school uniform.   Andy unsure if she is at he right yoga class, looks down at the creased leaflet to reassure herself. Realising that she is at the right community centre she flicks the leaflet and walks in excited for her first yoga class. Being the f...

For the graphics in my book and the front cover I decided to commission a graphics designer. Her name is Roxana Christou. Roxana has a degree and is a qualified graphics designer. The reason I decided to commission someone else to do the front cover for me is because I wanted to focus a lot more on my script, characters and storyline. I communicated with Roxana through email and phone calls where I described to her what it is that I wanted and expected. Initially I gave Roxana an overview of my sitcom, who the characters are and what to expect to happen to them. I wanted it to be sketch based, so the attention is not drawn to who the actor is in my book but more who the character is and an idea of what they might look like. What I requested:  - Sketches of my characters - design of my cover page for my book Characters  For the sketches of my characters i described to her how I imagined my characters, from their facial features to their hair and asked her for  b...