Evaluation
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 look at the type of humour and storylines they would have.
With my research I watched comedy shows and sitcoms such as Fresh Meat, Chewing Gum, Roseanne, Fresh off the Boat, Friends and Roseanne. The reason I chose to take closer looks into these sitcoms is because, some are university student baed, diverse, friendship based and family based which are the main themes of my sitcom. After watching these sitcoms, and how they introduced their characters an figuring out what made them good, along with my channel research, I decided to change the storyline of my sitcom. Rather than making it your stereotypical conservative family, I decided to make the parents more new age and alternative, since they grew up in London, two kids only along with the grandparent and Uncle Panny, and I also introduced two new 3 new characters; Chantelle, Sebastian and Mr Conrad. Chantelle and Sebastian are Hara's roommates who live with her and her family, and Mr Conrad is the man that Hara lusts for in the show. By having non-cypriot character, it gave me more space and better material to express the bizarreness of the family and compare them to the English culture.
After the new changes to the sitcom, it was much easier to write and figure out a pilot episode. I introduced the main characters (Hara and the family), with them travelling from Cyprus and intruding on her experience and her two flatmates who introduce her to university life with alcohol, weed and going out, which once again is interrupted by her family. With Hara having a love interest, allowed me to show how awkward and bad at dating and flirting she is and also gave her a goal. The final script that I handed in, I'm really please with. I feel that I got the humour across that I am aiming for with realistic characters that the audience can relate to as well as the over the top slapstick humour.
When writing the rest of the synopsis, it was easy to imagine how each episode could go and what it would involve. Knowing my characters inside out and imaging how they would react to a certain situation helped me come up with the synopsis. Not 100% in the beginning how I was going to end the sitcom, I went along with each episode Hara humiliating herself in front of Mr Conrad, Andy and Stav in awkward sexual situations, Kotchy being a nerd, Yiayia Maria wanting to set Hara up with men, Pappou Andrea wanting to get his hands on alcohol and Uncle Panny doing a dodgy job. I focused on these storylines for each character and made sure that each obstacle they came across to reach their goal was achieved by the end of the season. They way the sitcom has ended now, is with Hara ending up with Mr Conrad in a bizarre way and it turning out the he is actually English Cypriot. The biggest issue I had was writing the synopsis for the book and Simon. I had too much detail of what was going to happen in the episode rather than it being descriptive. After countless of drafts to Simon, I managed to make them less detailed and more descriptive and in some cases made it obvious that the humour is "slapstick", "dry" or "over the top". Furthermore, I decided to name the episode after Greek Gods, depending which God was which e.g. love, marriage, family etc. It felt fitting and added to the fact that it is based on a Cypriot family.
When it came to making the book, I was originally very nervous as I am not very good with editing or the adobe programs. But, I actually found it very easy to figure out and managed to make sure that the text was aligned with the opposite page so it could look more professional. I found the font that E4 uses and used that in my book, so it could match E4 format. In terms of editing, the only issue I had was making the posters for my sitcom. I asked Nisserin to help me re-edit them so they could look more clear and professional, and was very happy with the final results. With my front cover and the graphics of the characters, I commissioned a graphics designer, as I did not want to focus too much on learning a new program to make it but more on the script, plot and the characters themselves. Also, not being the best with editing I wanted my vision of the appearance of the characters and the front cover to be clear. I found it easy to communicate with her. We did so by phone and email where I would give her feedback on the drawings she did for me, along with Simon's feedback.
All in all, I am pleased with my work that I did this term. Although a challenge in the beginning and the worry of wether or not the humour was good, I am pleased with the outcome and look forward to writing the upcoming episodes.
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 look at the type of humour and storylines they would have.
With my research I watched comedy shows and sitcoms such as Fresh Meat, Chewing Gum, Roseanne, Fresh off the Boat, Friends and Roseanne. The reason I chose to take closer looks into these sitcoms is because, some are university student baed, diverse, friendship based and family based which are the main themes of my sitcom. After watching these sitcoms, and how they introduced their characters an figuring out what made them good, along with my channel research, I decided to change the storyline of my sitcom. Rather than making it your stereotypical conservative family, I decided to make the parents more new age and alternative, since they grew up in London, two kids only along with the grandparent and Uncle Panny, and I also introduced two new 3 new characters; Chantelle, Sebastian and Mr Conrad. Chantelle and Sebastian are Hara's roommates who live with her and her family, and Mr Conrad is the man that Hara lusts for in the show. By having non-cypriot character, it gave me more space and better material to express the bizarreness of the family and compare them to the English culture.
After the new changes to the sitcom, it was much easier to write and figure out a pilot episode. I introduced the main characters (Hara and the family), with them travelling from Cyprus and intruding on her experience and her two flatmates who introduce her to university life with alcohol, weed and going out, which once again is interrupted by her family. With Hara having a love interest, allowed me to show how awkward and bad at dating and flirting she is and also gave her a goal. The final script that I handed in, I'm really please with. I feel that I got the humour across that I am aiming for with realistic characters that the audience can relate to as well as the over the top slapstick humour.
When writing the rest of the synopsis, it was easy to imagine how each episode could go and what it would involve. Knowing my characters inside out and imaging how they would react to a certain situation helped me come up with the synopsis. Not 100% in the beginning how I was going to end the sitcom, I went along with each episode Hara humiliating herself in front of Mr Conrad, Andy and Stav in awkward sexual situations, Kotchy being a nerd, Yiayia Maria wanting to set Hara up with men, Pappou Andrea wanting to get his hands on alcohol and Uncle Panny doing a dodgy job. I focused on these storylines for each character and made sure that each obstacle they came across to reach their goal was achieved by the end of the season. They way the sitcom has ended now, is with Hara ending up with Mr Conrad in a bizarre way and it turning out the he is actually English Cypriot. The biggest issue I had was writing the synopsis for the book and Simon. I had too much detail of what was going to happen in the episode rather than it being descriptive. After countless of drafts to Simon, I managed to make them less detailed and more descriptive and in some cases made it obvious that the humour is "slapstick", "dry" or "over the top". Furthermore, I decided to name the episode after Greek Gods, depending which God was which e.g. love, marriage, family etc. It felt fitting and added to the fact that it is based on a Cypriot family.
When it came to making the book, I was originally very nervous as I am not very good with editing or the adobe programs. But, I actually found it very easy to figure out and managed to make sure that the text was aligned with the opposite page so it could look more professional. I found the font that E4 uses and used that in my book, so it could match E4 format. In terms of editing, the only issue I had was making the posters for my sitcom. I asked Nisserin to help me re-edit them so they could look more clear and professional, and was very happy with the final results. With my front cover and the graphics of the characters, I commissioned a graphics designer, as I did not want to focus too much on learning a new program to make it but more on the script, plot and the characters themselves. Also, not being the best with editing I wanted my vision of the appearance of the characters and the front cover to be clear. I found it easy to communicate with her. We did so by phone and email where I would give her feedback on the drawings she did for me, along with Simon's feedback.
All in all, I am pleased with my work that I did this term. Although a challenge in the beginning and the worry of wether or not the humour was good, I am pleased with the outcome and look forward to writing the upcoming episodes.
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