Well done Steve and Aptitude. Though I do think something has been overlooked by everyone that was stated as being the most important point on Lord Sugar's brief.
I realise this is pretty hard without your project manager being here, but we will be continuing with this boardroom, and will have the final boardroom now with you three.
Well done Steve and Aptitude. Though I do think something has been overlooked by everyone that was stated as being the most important point on Lord Sugar's brief.
This does make it seem like the idea was decided before an industry was even considered, and the industry chosen was just an afterthought. Do you think this was a good way to go around the task? Whilst the idea itself is as always of paramount importance, I did make it clear in the brief just how important it fitting into your chosen industry was...
I'm going to expand on this slightly more as I feel this was ^ up here was the reason we lost this task and also not the reason I should be fired at the same time.
I did say repeatedly how paramount the genre aspect of the task was and so we should build it from the genre up so start with the most popular genre like sci-fi but that did not work with my colleagues. As a compromise to my colleagues I accepted the idea, and made it a point quite strongly to chose a relevant genre at least. So I settled on a period drama like Downton Abbey or a thriller and to make some adjustments so that Shadi has a bit more creative license and he can make the characters unrealistic to this time for the period drama but relevant in that while a thriller would allow him to experiment even more and do whatever he wanted as realism need not apply, and I ended up having an argument with both my colleages (and even Zak) and they refused to listen to my ideas.
I do feel Shadi although creatively speaking very good was being stubborn in this way in trying to make the idea work.
I realise this is pretty hard without your project manager being here, but we will be continuing with this boardroom, and will have the final boardroom now with you three.
What do you think went wrong?
I think that possibly we were too quick to go with Shadi's idea. I myself didn't have that much input in the choosing of the actual film basis, as Shadi pitched the first half of his film and then I had to go out, and by the time I was back Zak, Shadi and Roxie were all planning how it would work. However, that's not to say that I was against it, because I wasn't - on the contrary, I did really like that idea. But I think we probably chose it too quickly, or maybe we could have adapted it to fit with our theme more than it did.
I'm going to expand on this slightly more as I feel this was ^ up here was the reason we lost this task and also not the reason I should be fired at the same time.
I did say repeatedly how paramount the genre aspect of the task was and so we should build it from the genre up so start with the most popular genre like sci-fi but that did not work with my colleagues. As a compromise to my colleagues I accepted the idea, and made it a point quite strongly to chose a relevant genre at least. So I settled on a period drama like Downton Abbey or a thriller and to make some adjustments so that Shadi has a bit more creative license and he can make the characters unrealistic to this time for the period drama but relevant in that while a thriller would allow him to experiment even more and do whatever he wanted as realism need not apply, and I ended up having an argument with both my colleages (and even Zak) and they refused to listen to my ideas.
I do feel Shadi although creatively speaking very good was being stubborn in this way in trying to make the idea work.
I did hear complaints of this from my advisor as well. I do understand that the idea for the film derived from Shadi's pre existing idea for a novel. Shadi, in hindsight do you think it might have been a better idea to have come up with a new idea for this task? As David stated earlier, using your own idea seems to have made the task a bit too personal for you and has resulted you in being accused of being 'stubborn' in regards to making changes.
The budget - no one commented that budgets for independently produced animation films cost SUBSTANTIALLY more than £2.5 million and the reason lies in Post-production with special effects. Corpse Bride and Tales of Desperaux are similar animated films made by an independent film house yet their budgets were in the region of £40million and £60million.
Especially with an action based animation with lots of colour adjustment and animation needed Aptitude's idea would be so expensive.
As a person who did the budget for our team and did a lot of research into it, and who people generally supported, this budget does not seem realistic at all.
That's all I'll say about that but LSA did state it was a very important point in the brief.
I'm going to expand on this slightly more as I feel this was ^ up here was the reason we lost this task and also not the reason I should be fired at the same time.
I did say repeatedly how paramount the genre aspect of the task was and so we should build it from the genre up so start with the most popular genre like sci-fi but that did not work with my colleagues. As a compromise to my colleagues I accepted the idea, and made it a point quite strongly to chose a relevant genre at least. So I settled on a period drama like Downton Abbey or a thriller and to make some adjustments so that Shadi has a bit more creative license and he can make the characters unrealistic to this time for the period drama but relevant in that while a thriller would allow him to experiment even more and do whatever he wanted as realism need not apply, and I ended up having an argument with both my colleages (and even Zak) and they refused to listen to my ideas.
I do feel Shadi although creatively speaking very good was being stubborn in this way in trying to make the idea work.
I did notice that you were the person who most wanted to make changes to the plot, and I actually think that some of your suggested changes (e.g. making it a period drama) could have mitigated some of the more ridiculous aspects of your plot, of which there were many.
You were also the only person to offer any other serious suggestions. Do you think you could have pushed harder to install another idea or change your team mate's minds?
The budget - no one commented that budgets for independently produced animation films cost SUBSTANTIALLY more than £2.5 million and the reason lies in Post-production with special effects. Corpse Bride and Tales of Desperaux are similar animated films made by an independent film house yet their budgets were in the region of £40million and £60million.
Especially with an action based animation with lots of colour adjustment and animation needed Aptitude's idea would be so expensive.
As a person who did the budget for our team and did a lot of research into it, and who people generally supported, this budget does not seem realistic at all.
That's all I'll say about that but LSA did state it was a very important point in the brief.
The budget was only meant to be a realistic estimate. Obviously in Aptitude's case their estimate was not realistic, but the budget was not of huge importance. The brief stressed that your film must fit well into your chosen industry and that is what the brief was emphasising the importance of, not the budget.
You know the thing is, I try to give my all every task. And when I saw what this task was about, I knew that I had to just give my best idea. When Zak started the brainstorming discussion, I laid out my idea. He loved it. Roxie loved it. George loved it. And there wasn't any other full-fledged idea that we can choose from. Zak saw a pretty good screenplay was almost ready and that bulk of the task was gone 15 minutes in. Fitting that into the british film scene was not my idea, nor my intention as I had started suggesting American actresses known in hollywood, and some American TV stars. I had never brought up the British scene. As for the genre, this screen play is a drama, it can not be turned into anything else. A period piece, as Roxie suggested, would still be a drama. And this could not have been turned into an action movie because it wasn't. If anyone wants to jump on the bandwagon of the idea, or if someone felt it was flawed, we had 2 full days, why wasn't there any alternative idea to substitute for mine? Why didn't Zak ask for someone else to come up with idea? Why didn't say Roxie suggest a screen play? I did not force anyone to use my idea but seeing how this has been a screenplay that I had developed for quite some time, I was against major changes. And George would agree with me when I say that most of the changes Roxie suggested to the screenplay were not on par with what I had laid out anyways.
I admit that I was a bit resilient at times to change some things, but I allowed for many adjustments. Annette was turned upside down and I didn't mind. The society was not chosen by me either. And Roxie came to up with several points and asked me to add them which I whole-heartedly did. But if Roxie or anyone wanted an action more or a period drama, they should've come up with the script accordingly, instead of trying to alter mine to fit the genre when it wouldn't have worked.
I did notice that you were the person who most wanted to make changes to the plot, and I actually think that some of your suggested changes (e.g. making it a period drama) could have mitigated some of the more ridiculous aspects of your plot, of which there were many.
You were also the only person to offer any other serious suggestions. Do you think you could have pushed harder to install another idea or change your team mate's minds?
No I tried my best really, as a person who is assertive enough as it usually is I did not feel that anything I could have said or done could have changed what Shadi and George believed. I did push for other aspects to be made more realistic and I also feel these were not taken in - like the contradiction about Annette being childhood friends with Nina and just giving her son away. I did try my absolute best and a big argument ensued but I do feel any more pressure on them would be counter productive to anything that we were going to do and bad for team morale so I made the first steps to making up with Shadi and George and we made up. In the bits I had to compromise on I still continued making suggestions.
I feel I was trying really hard to make this whole idea work as a British drama - many of the ideas in making it as realistic as possible were done by me like Annette's difficulty in conceiving children, alcoholism, abuse etc. to make us at least address current issues. And I did badger the points in and was assertive once again on these areas, so I do feel I have tried my best.
You know the thing is, I try to give my all every task. And when I saw what this task was about, I knew that I had to just give my best idea. When Zak started the brainstorming discussion, I laid out my idea. He loved it. Roxie loved it. George loved it. And there wasn't any other full-fledged idea that we can choose from. Zak saw a pretty good screenplay was almost ready and that bulk of the task was gone 15 minutes in. Fitting that into the british film scene was not my idea, nor my intention as I had started suggesting American actresses known in hollywood, and some American TV stars. I had never brought up the British scene. As for the genre, this screen play is a drama, it can not be turned into anything else. A period piece, as Roxie suggested, would still be a drama. And this could not have been turned into an action movie because it wasn't. If anyone wants to jump on the bandwagon of the idea, or if someone felt it was flawed, we had 2 full days, why wasn't there any alternative idea to substitute for mine? Why didn't Zak ask for someone else to come up with idea? Why didn't say Roxie suggest a screen play? I did not force anyone to use my idea but seeing how this has been a screenplay that I had developed for quite some time, I was against major changes. And George would agree with me when I say that most of the changes Roxie suggested to the screenplay were not on par with what I had laid out anyways.
I admit that I was a bit resilient at times to change some things, but I allowed for many adjustments. Annette was turned upside down and I didn't mind. The society was not chosen by me either. And Roxie came to up with several points and asked me to add them which I whole-heartedly did. But if Roxie or anyone wanted an action more or a period drama, they should've come up with the script accordingly, instead of trying to alter mine to fit the genre when it wouldn't have worked.
It does seem like an issue was that there was a lack of alternative ideas offered. Obviously this was a managerial fault, but do you think you could have collectively come up with more ideas?
I'll also reiterate what I said earlier - it does seem a little like you put so much focus on the film idea and less on the specific industry you would be trying to make the film in. Do you think it might have been better to have considered the industry at an earlier point, instead of trying to fit the idea into a specific industry after establishing the idea?
I think I was probably thinking too much about making a great film, and not enough about winning the task itself.
I would agree that this was probably an issue. In future task briefs should be looked at more closely to determine what we really want from a task.
Another question for you George, from what I gather you were the main factor in choosing the British film industry. As this is what essentially lost you the task, do you think you are to blame for the failure of the task?
It does seem like an issue was that there was a lack of alternative ideas offered. Obviously this was a managerial fault, but do you think you could have collectively come up with more ideas?
I'll also reiterate what I said earlier - it does seem a little like you put so much focus on the film idea and less on the specific industry you would be trying to make the film in. Do you think it might have been better to have considered the industry at an earlier point, instead of trying to fit the idea into a specific industry after establishing the idea?
I suggested UK independent right from the start - I can't remember if it was before or after Shadi suggested his idea, but I wanted to go with that because I thought it would be gritty, realistic and promote the UK film industry. It was suggested, mainly by Roxie, that the script would work better with a different industry, but generally it was decided that we'd go with UK. I accept that I possibly could have done better not to push that idea.
I would agree that this was probably an issue. In future task briefs should be looked at more closely to determine what we really want from a task.
Another question for you George, from what I gather you were the main factor in choosing the British film industry. As this is what essentially lost you the task, do you think you are to blame for the failure of the task?
It's an interesting question. I think that it has become clear that trying to combine the UK film industry with Shadi's idea was certainly a mistake, and possibly we would have gone with a different film industry had it not been for me. However, had I not been here, we still would have lost. I was the one who worked incredibly hard to develop the characters for this. I found the actors, which was one of the things that was praised in our pitch. I delivered the whole pitch myself and answered nearly all of the questions, although Shadi added a bit to one of my answers. If I hadn't been here we may have not gone with the UK film industry, but we would have lost for other reasons. And besides, you cannot blame me for us going with the UK film industry. Yes, I was keen and I pushed that idea, but the overall decision was Zak's.
I suggested UK independent right from the start - I can't remember if it was before or after Shadi suggested his idea, but I wanted to go with that because I thought it would be gritty, realistic and promote the UK film industry. It was suggested, mainly by Roxie, that the script would work better with a different industry, but generally it was decided that we'd go with UK. I accept that I possibly could have done better not to push that idea.
Apologies for keeping on asking you questions, but I just want to establish one more thing. Was there a particular reason you went with the British film industry, and did you do any further research after making your decision? The leading directors in the drama field of British cinema are people like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, who make films that are pretty much as realistic and true to life as you can get for a non fiction film. I think Shadi's plot idea was imaginative and clearly a lot of thought had gone into it, but the biggest issue was that there were several aspects that just seemed like they wouldn't happen in real life. Whilst this may be okay for another industry, I feel it is totally wrong for the British film industry.
Apologies for keeping on asking you questions, but I just want to establish one more thing. Was there a particular reason you went with the British film industry, and did you do any further research after making your decision? The leading directors in the drama field of British cinema are people like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, who make films that are pretty much as realistic and true to life as you can get for a non fiction film. I think Shadi's plot idea was imaginative and clearly a lot of thought had gone into it, but the biggest issue was that there were several aspects that just seemed like they wouldn't happen in real life. Whilst this may be okay for another industry, I feel it is totally wrong for the British film industry.
I can't say the reason that we actually went for that industry - that decision was Zak's, you'd have to ask him. I can tell you the reason that I pushed it - I personally feel that the UK film industry is underrated, I think that there are some fantastic British actors who are sidelined in favour of American actors, or in the case of Robert Pattinson have to play roles with American accents which I think is a little undermining. However, there have been numerous films made in Britain that have been great, whether they are huge industries like Harry Potter or smaller independent films like The Scouting Book For Boys. I felt that UK indie wasn't too ambitious, we'd be able to work with a modest and realistic budget - and at the time I genuinely did see Shadi's idea working with that industry. Those were my reasons for pushing it, but the decision to go with it was Zak's, not mine.
As for your comments about the directors, we wanted an up-and-coming British director. I found a list of such directors - I quite liked the look of Tom Kingsley, but Roxie was really keen on Andrea Arnold and when she explained her reasoning, Shadi and I were really on board. So there was some research that went into it, but maybe we could have done with a bit more.
Well you know me, when I can, I contribute to tasks that I'm not even assigned to. This task I was too pressured with tomorrow's critical Final exam and some personal issues yet I still gave my all. But I just felt that no one tried to come up with a different script, yet mine is being blamed for not fitting their expectations of what it should have been. I changed it as much as I could, but if the theme and the genre they had in mind was so drastically different than the one I had employed in my movie, wouldn't have been easier to suggest an alternative screenplay rather than try to drastically adjust mine?
Okay, thank you for your responses, I think we've discussed the idea and established issues enough.
I'd now like to put more emphasis on you as candidates. Focusing on this task solely and ignoring others for the time being, can you please all tell me why you shouldn't be fired based on this task and who you feel deserves to be fired instead?
Comments
Good luck team Inspired.
What do you think went wrong?
I'm going to expand on this slightly more as I feel this was ^ up here was the reason we lost this task and also not the reason I should be fired at the same time.
I did say repeatedly how paramount the genre aspect of the task was and so we should build it from the genre up so start with the most popular genre like sci-fi but that did not work with my colleagues. As a compromise to my colleagues I accepted the idea, and made it a point quite strongly to chose a relevant genre at least. So I settled on a period drama like Downton Abbey or a thriller and to make some adjustments so that Shadi has a bit more creative license and he can make the characters unrealistic to this time for the period drama but relevant in that while a thriller would allow him to experiment even more and do whatever he wanted as realism need not apply, and I ended up having an argument with both my colleages (and even Zak) and they refused to listen to my ideas.
I do feel Shadi although creatively speaking very good was being stubborn in this way in trying to make the idea work.
I think that possibly we were too quick to go with Shadi's idea. I myself didn't have that much input in the choosing of the actual film basis, as Shadi pitched the first half of his film and then I had to go out, and by the time I was back Zak, Shadi and Roxie were all planning how it would work. However, that's not to say that I was against it, because I wasn't - on the contrary, I did really like that idea. But I think we probably chose it too quickly, or maybe we could have adapted it to fit with our theme more than it did.
The budget - no one commented that budgets for independently produced animation films cost SUBSTANTIALLY more than £2.5 million and the reason lies in Post-production with special effects. Corpse Bride and Tales of Desperaux are similar animated films made by an independent film house yet their budgets were in the region of £40million and £60million.
Especially with an action based animation with lots of colour adjustment and animation needed Aptitude's idea would be so expensive.
As a person who did the budget for our team and did a lot of research into it, and who people generally supported, this budget does not seem realistic at all.
That's all I'll say about that but LSA did state it was a very important point in the brief.
You were also the only person to offer any other serious suggestions. Do you think you could have pushed harder to install another idea or change your team mate's minds?
I admit that I was a bit resilient at times to change some things, but I allowed for many adjustments. Annette was turned upside down and I didn't mind. The society was not chosen by me either. And Roxie came to up with several points and asked me to add them which I whole-heartedly did. But if Roxie or anyone wanted an action more or a period drama, they should've come up with the script accordingly, instead of trying to alter mine to fit the genre when it wouldn't have worked.
No I tried my best really, as a person who is assertive enough as it usually is I did not feel that anything I could have said or done could have changed what Shadi and George believed. I did push for other aspects to be made more realistic and I also feel these were not taken in - like the contradiction about Annette being childhood friends with Nina and just giving her son away. I did try my absolute best and a big argument ensued but I do feel any more pressure on them would be counter productive to anything that we were going to do and bad for team morale so I made the first steps to making up with Shadi and George and we made up. In the bits I had to compromise on I still continued making suggestions.
I feel I was trying really hard to make this whole idea work as a British drama - many of the ideas in making it as realistic as possible were done by me like Annette's difficulty in conceiving children, alcoholism, abuse etc. to make us at least address current issues. And I did badger the points in and was assertive once again on these areas, so I do feel I have tried my best.
I'll also reiterate what I said earlier - it does seem a little like you put so much focus on the film idea and less on the specific industry you would be trying to make the film in. Do you think it might have been better to have considered the industry at an earlier point, instead of trying to fit the idea into a specific industry after establishing the idea?
Another question for you George, from what I gather you were the main factor in choosing the British film industry. As this is what essentially lost you the task, do you think you are to blame for the failure of the task?
I suggested UK independent right from the start - I can't remember if it was before or after Shadi suggested his idea, but I wanted to go with that because I thought it would be gritty, realistic and promote the UK film industry. It was suggested, mainly by Roxie, that the script would work better with a different industry, but generally it was decided that we'd go with UK. I accept that I possibly could have done better not to push that idea.
It's an interesting question. I think that it has become clear that trying to combine the UK film industry with Shadi's idea was certainly a mistake, and possibly we would have gone with a different film industry had it not been for me. However, had I not been here, we still would have lost. I was the one who worked incredibly hard to develop the characters for this. I found the actors, which was one of the things that was praised in our pitch. I delivered the whole pitch myself and answered nearly all of the questions, although Shadi added a bit to one of my answers. If I hadn't been here we may have not gone with the UK film industry, but we would have lost for other reasons. And besides, you cannot blame me for us going with the UK film industry. Yes, I was keen and I pushed that idea, but the overall decision was Zak's.
I can't say the reason that we actually went for that industry - that decision was Zak's, you'd have to ask him. I can tell you the reason that I pushed it - I personally feel that the UK film industry is underrated, I think that there are some fantastic British actors who are sidelined in favour of American actors, or in the case of Robert Pattinson have to play roles with American accents which I think is a little undermining. However, there have been numerous films made in Britain that have been great, whether they are huge industries like Harry Potter or smaller independent films like The Scouting Book For Boys. I felt that UK indie wasn't too ambitious, we'd be able to work with a modest and realistic budget - and at the time I genuinely did see Shadi's idea working with that industry. Those were my reasons for pushing it, but the decision to go with it was Zak's, not mine.
As for your comments about the directors, we wanted an up-and-coming British director. I found a list of such directors - I quite liked the look of Tom Kingsley, but Roxie was really keen on Andrea Arnold and when she explained her reasoning, Shadi and I were really on board. So there was some research that went into it, but maybe we could have done with a bit more.
I'd now like to put more emphasis on you as candidates. Focusing on this task solely and ignoring others for the time being, can you please all tell me why you shouldn't be fired based on this task and who you feel deserves to be fired instead?