The Digital Spy Apprentice Series 4 - Task Four Boardroom
_NiallDEE_
Posts: 13,584 Forum Member
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Hello candidates, and welcome to the fourth boardroom.
Are you all here? How are you currently feeling about this task?
Are you all here? How are you currently feeling about this task?
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Comments
I'm reasonably confident, but a little anticipatory all the same.
I'm here and feeling okay! Pleased with the general reception etc.
Also, did his quitting part way through cause many issues for the team? How did you get around this?
Sorry I'm a bit late was answering a final question, I'm a bit nervous as we were late posting our pitch up and I feel some of the decisions made diluted our target market. Though I recognise that there were some problems with parts of our plot.
I wish I could say that he was good as PM but I'm afraid I would be lying. Steve is a nice guy and he had some good ideas but was not very strong and rather indecisive. The pitch was thrown together due to a lack of real organisation which lead us to post up late.
I didn't feel like Zak was a very good PM at all. He delegated things to us, which myself, Shadi and Roxie did our best on, and it felt like we were doing nearly all of the work. When Zak quit around the end of the second day, it made us more anxious about what would happen if we lost, but it didn't affect the overall way we were undertaking the task, as the three of us had already done the lion's share of the work without Zak, so we just carried on with what we had been doing.
And it's a shame about Zak it really is. He was so enthusiastic and I've always thought that like myself he really tries to make an idea work and tries to work on the main contradictions. It's a real shame he had to resign because he was doing a good job up till that point - the duties were a little in the air at times but he did delegate well. I do wish he informed us a bit earlier but with personal life these things happen so quickly so it is understandable. I wish him the best of luck.
Yes George and I together sorted out the other things last night when we learned Zak would not be participating any more and I think we did a fine job. I did try and make sure everything was organized and made sure everyone was in the loop about the pitch/who was doing what/what still needed to be done for tomorrow and George did an excellent job of bringing everything together so yes some fantastic team helped us pull through.
Well, there were people who wanted me to start being more honest, so here I am doing just that, it also has nothing to do with being tactical about it, nor do I intend to make it so.
Getting on to the actual task now. Inspired, your choice of the British film industry was interesting, drama films in the British film industry are usually based around social realism, whereas I felt there were quite a few aspects of your plot that went way beyond the realms of realism. Why did you decide to go with the British film industry, and do you think this was possibly not the best decision for your particular film?
I pushed for the British film industry. I personally really like British films, and I do feel that our industry is somewhat underrated. The most notable films are made in countries such as the US, India, Japan and other countries. I think that there have however been many times in which the British industry has proved itself as being very capable at making really high-quality drama. I also think that there are many fantastic British actors who are underused in films, or if they are used they have to imitate American accents to match the accents of the other actors. I thought it would be great to show that the UK industry can produce a really engaging film.
Obviously, the plot was written by Shadi who isn't British, so maybe it would have been a bit different if he had been. However, I don't think that it really opposes the social realism theme that much. As I said in the pitch, the central characters depict archetypes that many British viewers will be able to identify with. The plot itself may require a little suspension of disbelief, but I don't think it goes to the extent of falling out of our genre.
As I answered in the questions it was unintentional but yes we were aware of the similarities but we felt that with the animation and our very different theme we would be able to differentiate ourselves. Also our target market is different to that of Divergent but I do see why issue has been raised.
I tried to make it as realistic as possible and made it so that Annette's character was humanized (with the abusive relationship with an alcoholic husband and unable to have children of her own). These various issues would quite easily and relevantly lead themselves to British audiences as they are topics which are discussed upon in the country.
At the same time I had also put in another suggestion that Annette's character with the death of her husband and lack of financial support (along with Jacob's bills to pay) then gave the baby away for adoption making a hard choice based off financial considerations. Nina's incentive to have given Annette the baby in teh first place could have been that Annette was still in a stable job and that she would have received some financial support from her husband's death. As especially when a single mother, people have considerable financial burden.
Unfortunately this point was not put into the synopsis but in the end these 'unrealistic' points can be adjusted for the end product as I did come up with various ways around them to make it work.
Well, personally I felt that it was close enough to work. I can certainly imagine it working. Although the fact that you have asked that question shows that the opinion here is clearly that it doesn't fit, and if that's the case I suppose we have to deal with that. But I think we could all see it working, and I certainly still can, I don't know about the others.
I would say that Arran being late didn't help matters as we had to make a start without him and by the time he came in we had all come on to an idea and started to develop it. Maybe with hindsight we should have waited a bit longer before setting things in stone but I don't feel we sidelined him - that certainly wasn't the intention.
I already have. I tried to make it work because both other members of my team wanted that. Yes I did have some hesitations to the story being a traditional British drama and so did Zak initially and I had even suggested that we do the story as a Hollywood thriller but I did not manage to convince my other team members this should be the case. I think at the end of the day we did make it work as a traditional British drama as the characters themselves are realistic and they do touch upon some very serious and contemporary issues.
EDIT: I do think that some of the 'realistic' criticism is looking for criticism in odd places especially considering Billy Elliot - an independent British drama certainly does not claim that every young British boy wants to be a ballet dancer - the plot certainly does not seem realistic in that sense, yet the themes and character himself make it appear very relevant and relatable. And I feel we have done the same here again and made the characters relevant and fresh and the overarching themes very realistic (that of transformation and social deprivation).