Who do you want to be your next Prime Minister?

It surprised me when I found out that this is the first time these Prime Ministerial Debates have ever been televised. Though the only reason I watched it was because it was on the channel when I switched it on.. and I kept it on which I really am glad I did.

I actually enjoyed and learned some snippets of new information which helped me decide who I voted for today. But between all the repeating and the snitching I had to concentrate on keeping track of what the question was really asking, and when the boys were actually doing a half baked attempt to actually answer the question, I had to wade through the high brow language too. There was little depth to most of their answers – Clegg mad e a dance and song about focussing on the people asking the questions and not detailing his plans. Tory denied making the cuts Labour said they would and vice versa. A lot of different people would be watching this and so I often felt too clever AND too stupid to understand what they were saying most of the time.

The debate is useful; it allowed me to judge how they defended their country and see if they had any sense of trustworthiness about them. However I have got most of my information, not from the horse’s mouth, but from the newspapers and by looking up their manifestos online.

"Second to the right and straight on till morning!"

It hurt me to be walking out of the King's Theatre regretting the last two hours or so on Wednesday. This was the first time I'd seen Peter Pan on the theatrical stage and I was really excited to be seeing a story I hold close to my heart. There were some brilliant moments in the play where you could catch a glimpse of what John Tiffany and David Grieg were seeing but it was marred by a huge mess of a cumbersome set (though I was impressed when they transformed into sails) and a huge lack of imagination for such a magical story.

You might as well have driven a knife in my gut when the push along dog came onto the stage. I am sure that a real dog is against health and safety protocol but anything, anything would have been better than that thing. I was expecting at least a guy in a dog suit. The maids were ridiculous and I felt sorry for every kid in there. In fact I felt sorry for everybody.

Stage movements were awkward, the revolving chunks took up so much space the actors had no freedom and the ugly harnesses did not help in the slightest. And excuse me, Mr Tiffany, what were you thinking when you took out that beautiful scene when Pan leads Wendy, John and Michael out of their window across the sky? It was like walking into the Sistine Chapel only to find the Creation of Adam rubbed out of the ceiling!

The feeling I always got from Peter Pan was that it's timeless. The Forth Road Bridge whacked a certain date and era on it and yes, yes I know that every version has the characters donned in some sort of Victorian costume but mainly they are in their nightclothes and the point is meant to be their time spent in Neverland. The time in this story is meant to be fluid as water and so why the huge emphasis on something that is essentially unimportant? Do we really care about where Mr Darling works? Not really.

The fourth wall was broken when Tink made her entrance and I loved it. She came in from the top right balcony and onto the stage. That was a millisecond of a whole audience being enveloped in magic but they should have had more of this. Peter flying across the theatre would have been amazing or am I being to ambitious and dreamy? But I really loved their interpretation of Tinkerbell. The flame was ingenious - a person would have been too big and awkward to capture the essence of the fairy. A flame meant her size was small, but her spirit is just as big as your imagination. It meant she could fly all over the stage on an invisible wire, enticing the audience into the true magic of Peter Pan.

The violence was a little shocking. I'm not saying I was expecting an a neat and polite conversation between Hook and Pan but I was disappointed at the lack of elegant parrying with respectable swords and was left instead with taste of fist fighting and animal aggressiveness. I would have just stood on Queen Street at 3am to observe the drunk lads getting hot under the collar if I really wanted to see all that...

However, there is a brilliant scene when Pan is pushed off the plank into the swell of the ocean. It was FABULOUS. Everything just went perfectly together. People ran onto the stage to push him down further into the growl of the sea, created by strong blue lights cast onto the bottom half the stage, Guthrie struggles against the men/sea, the music pounded and Peter shot into a yellow beam which showed in a split second he was resurfacing. Beautiful!

Though call me traditional, but where was the epic kiss with Wendy and Peter? I missed that. There were gaps like these all over the place and as a result the play felt rather bleak and empty, with the lack of romance and it was top heavy with creepy violence, with no gentle love to balance it out.

There was a certain potent energy in Kevin Guthrie (Pan) and it was interesting to see his sinister anger mix with his childish cheekiness but this was lost with stuttered dialogue between characters and an unconvincing relationship with every character, especially Wendy and Captain Hook. (Why on earth did they make Hook able to 'fly'? That is just completely made up.) The most chilling moment though, was at the very last moment, you suddenly see a flash of the past and the future all at once when Wendy's nine year old daughter wakes to ask Pan 'why are you crying?' as did her mother all those years ago. Guthrie lets out another howl and you are haunted by the thought that it will happen all over again..

I'll just stay with my battered book and let my imagination tell me the story when I look at the painting of the fairies dancing around Peter on the wall at home....

"I didn't think she was a kangaroo!"

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this film despite the lengthiness of it. I found Harold Russell (sailor Homer Parrish) and Myrna Loy (Al’s wife, Milly Stephenson) particularly compelling to watch. Why?

Because they are both very strong characters who were enjoyable to watch. Milly is a 'strong woman' and she does not even need to go through a phase being 'strengthened' by a series of bad events. She carries on exactly as she has been doing when Al was away and whilst she welcomes him back to their life together she does not back down from being open minded and from guiding her daughter.

She quietly lets her husband re adjust to their world and she openly expresses her own frustrations (at his dependancy on alcohol) but without letting go her faith in their marriage. She's strong in that she leaves her lover behind and moves on, entirely focussed on her life with Al.

Moreover, her character and the relationship between her and Al were entirely believable. They disagree over how many drinks he should have and there are awkward moments such as when she takes him breakfast in the morning (she indicates for him to sit down on the bed and he doesn't so she ends up just leaving it on the bed) …. but they work hard to be honest with each other and treat each other with respect. A moment which encapsulates this is when she replies to her daughter:

[after Peggy (her daughter) tells her parents that they never had any trouble in their relationship]

Milly: "We never had any trouble." How many times have I told you I hated you and believed it in my heart? How many times have you said you were sick and tired of me; that we were all washed up? How many times have we had to fall in love all over again?

Homer was not always necessarily strong (he refuses to accept help often) but his performance was nevertheless fascinating to watch because he characterized a mental battle which can either make or break you when dealing with coming home from war. Not only is his character dealing with that but he's unsure how to deal with the emotional effects of no longer having his hands. Away from home such sights (his metal claws) were much more common and accepted he could carry out his tasks with great efficiency but when faced with hugging his sweetheart on his return he's unprepared. He embodies this well by possessing a lively humour with his lines but also effectively performing the mix of frustration, pride and the desire to let Wilma, his girl, to not be held back even though he still loves her.

I found that The Best Years of Our Lives reached beyond its era – it gave me an insight into that period of time which I didn't expect and I enjoyed it's humorous script and simplicity in events.

How The Other Half Live

When I first saw the adverts for this new series I saw the money of Secret Millionaire and the concept of Wife Swap with a new twist. Which it is ...but not quite.

Families living in poverty show us their situation and then they are sponsored by wealthy families who feel that 'charity comes from the home' or that their children need to see the real world. Which comes across as dangerous ground for pretentious and embarrassing scenarios when either the rich family end up just throwing money at the poor or having a family in poverty not being gracious or thankful. In fact I have that feeling of dread a lot when watching these types of documentaries (Supernanny, The World's Strictest Parents….)

So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched Episode 3 in the new series and saw how the poverty that Annie and Zofia were living in was not self inflicted. Zofia's company had gone bust and the debts had accumulated, made worse when she lost her cleaning job because she had taken her 8 year old into work for an hour before school…

By the end of the programme I felt I had taken away a sense of more perspective about how giving money to others, in such a way, need not be pretentious and condensing but instead empowering. I thought Julia (the sponsor) might have ended offering Zofia a job at her firm which would have been embarrassing but instead she and her husband invested in Zofia's business.

I was really interested because the 'poor' family weren't complaining or asking for money which made the show feel more authentic and clean whereas on similar shows it sometimes feels dramatised to the point of embarrassing themselves, for example, on Supernanny some parents go the extra mile in being awful in front of the cameras.

In general I'm watching documentaries a great deal more because they are letting me know about our society in fresh formats which come across as fun to watch although, lots of them seem to like having a huge 'feel-good' factor for the viewer, which is interesting that we need to feel gratified by seeing a 'happily ever after'.

"Well…it's like Who Am I? but with teaspoons!"

I learned a heap with our guest speaker, Colin Cameron, on Tues this week. Basically he gave us a brief on the relationship between the broadcaster and the producer, how commissioning works, how to make a show happen, the challenges that independents face, tips on how to be the best producer in the world!

Commissioners

They hold money and air time: you need both for successful TV. “The person holding the purse strings and access to schedules is the one you want to look for.”

- InIncreasingly they come from marketing, scheduling or audience research backgrounds

- Tthey are obsessive: they will watch the overnights and base decisions on how well a programme does in a particular slot; whether it improved on that slot from the year before etc and this method applies to whether on BBC, ITV, Channels 4 & 5 and digital channels too.

- MMove to the producer to solve their problems and to secure their repuatation as a trustworthy channel etc

- CCommissioners, now, are deeply involved in every step of the project to ensure that it will gratify the needs of their specific slot, channel and audience.

- TTHEY WILL TAKE THE CREDIT IF THE SHOW IS A SUCCESS

- IF IF IT IS A FLOP THEN IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT!

It was also apparent that it is increasingly tough to get a show off the ground because commissioners rarely fund the project themselves now. Apparently they’ll put up a certain amount but it’s progressively more expected for US to bring the money, particularly with drama and more and more with documentaries…. The way you get money to float a show sounds kinda dodgy to me, for example ad-funded programming because it’s hard to maintain the editorial worth whist meeting the needs of the advertisers too. On the hand I thought format exploitation sounded really smart: you take the shape of the programme and then replace the onscreen talent with your own country’s famous people. It makes programmes really marketable and if you can propose format exploitation in the pitch, then it’s so much more likely to get bought/funded. That’s why Days That Shook The World did well because it had a voiceover and no talking heads in it, so then other countries just had to dub it in their own language.

Producers:

-BrBring the talent and ideas to the table

- TTurn an idea into compelling T

We did an exercise on tendering and this, whilst being fun and being the source of my title (courtesy of Murray!), it showed me just what commissioners may choose and why. We were given the options of three programmes.

BBC History had said they wanted a new popular history magazine format for early evening BBC2. We had to imagine we were the commissioners and make a decision as to which project to go with. Key points we had to think about were: the time slot, to think economically (which one would have the best returns) and editorially. Out of four groups no-one picked the one which actually got commissioned! I had thought another programme (Six Degrees) had looked the most promising on returns, popularity and had potential format exploitation. But this programme was picked because of the success of the American version that is now in its 7^th series. So commissioners

a) get scared with big budgets (Six Degrees had a MUCH larger budget than any other programme being tendered.)

b) pick programmes that have a safe format and don’t look risky…

Things that crossed my mind:

- Will ‘talent’ take over TV? In other words will the only way we will be able to sell programmes is with an ‘expert’ or a ‘celebrity/well-known kinda guy’?

- Does EVERYTHING have to be sold on the price over quality?! Going back to The Days That Shook The World – it was sold on its cheapness and it was a combo of drama, archive and contemporary footage sold at documentary prices! (But no, there is still loads of quality programmes out there – just like Nel: From Camden To Kabul, which blew me away – I’ll talk about that later!)

- When will there be a correct balance with the editorial content between the broadcaster and the producer since, apparently, all the broadcasters in the UK have held on strongly to the editorial control for programmes….

Key points of advice!

KNOW YOUR PITCH

By this target the channel by knowing exactly what the channel’s output is, do they want an ‘expert’ (Ch4, BBC2 and BBC4) or a ‘celeb’ (BB1, ITV1)?

Have a very good idea on how your pitch will play out.

Do your research: BBC commissioning website and Channel 4’s are good resources.

I really enjoyed Colin's talk because I learned a few more tips and saw the reality of how shows are tendered and put forward and how they are chosen on a tight basis, all very nitty gritty but I think with a good balance TV could be graced with some amazing shows.....I hope we have him again next year.

Today was the one of the best days I've had on this course so far.

With a class with Barbara in the morning we covered some important points about the world of being an exec producer and she's faaabulous. We looked at two very different types of programmes, discussed how they were commissioned/broadcast and what audiences they were reaching. First up was Sea of Souls (which I watched with my mum years ago when it was aired in 04) and it's just as good now. Being a mainstream programme it had all the ingredients there so to expect a large audience/following. Dawn Steele is a popular and local actress who had just finished Monarch of the Glen (which I also adored) and so she will have pulled in a high rating, likewise with Bill Paterson with the older generations. The narrative was really gripping: a character's dreams start to project themselves out into real life. It was interesting to know that it was initially intended to be a film but then was turned into a series, which I think works better as more parapsychological events could be explored, which was done, rather than just one and relationships could be developed between the central characters. I was really surprised to read later on IMdb, though, that the series has been sold to over 40 countries as of December 2005! I had never really thought about it properly before today, about selling a programme to other countries to air, but it's a bit obvious really. It was also really encouraging to hear from Barbara that the whole series was filmed in Glasgow – makes me feel happy that shows I've watched, way before coming to RSAMD and before I was looking into this world, were home-grown.

THEN I got introduced to Generation Kill. It now has a new devotee. I think the editing is excellent: snappy, but artistic at the same time. I was completely compelled by the action: it's a world I'll never see firsthand and so it's the closest I can get and its a world which fascinates me…the morals, the conversation, the no tv, no showers, no skyscrapers, no trains. No kids, no goldfish, no carpets. No highlighters, no alcohol...just a pack of smokes and letters. And a healthy dose of crude, lewd school boy jokes and slurs which are so un PC but somehow are not offensive?! Was interesting to see and talk about it....it's a programme I really liked but it's a very niche genre so it's not as “mainstream” as Sea of Souls, even though its budget is way much more!

Did you know that Rudy Reyes was played by himself?! The man is a god! I'm not talking about his face (though it's nice..) but he's a Buddhist, a top martial-arts fighter and a member of the First Recon. Barbara said that generated a lot of press by casting a real Marine fighter, which helped since none of the (numerous) actors were very well known and so it was difficult to attract huge audiences. I really really liked how they didn't rush to introduce the main characters. They were there on the edge of the screen and then brought in, or rather, shoved into your face – just like it would be in real life. Men came and went and milled about and lay on the floor. The main character – Evan 'Scribe' Wright played by Lee Tergeson – was introduced about 15 minutes in but it felt natural and fluid. Generation Kill is genius and I am so buying the box set.

I'm going to write about our guest speaker (Colin Cameron) tomorrow..

River City

Today we headed out to Dumbarton to see the River City set. No less than 5 mins in the fire alarm went off so we all poured out in the cold and stood about but when we got back in to start the tour, I felt really happy to be there!

I thought it was great that so many people had taken the trouble to talk to us and take us around the set. Seeing the backlot and the studio was a real eye-opener on how deceptive the programme is - when watching the show you'd never think that it was fake or that there was only three walls to the place!

I really liked some spaces but what I found most interesting is that you could tell instantly what type of character lived in this space and what class they would be or what kind of life from the bedspread or the way the kitchen was laid out.

The co-director (can't remember his name!) took us around the studio and answered all our questions. He made a point on how each person had their own job and that he wouldn't want to try and overtake them with it which I thought was a good piece of advice. He also mentioned that "everyone can make a contribution to an idea and I like it to be collaborative - but it's no democracy!" The main point he made was that the aim of every person on the show is to tell the story and at no point should it be lost. The director will see how it could be told and the editor should assemble them together in an understandable way etc.

The series producer took us round the backlot which was the most enjoyable part for me. Seeing how the place had been built from scratch so much of it was so believable! We saw a scene being cut and it was great seeing the crew in action. There were child actors and they shoot so that they spend as little time on set as possible. He also showed us how the schedule is broken down which was good to see and he explained how it might not always look like a lot but the when the director meets the 1st assistant it may become that one scene has a lot of detail and so most of a day may be spent on that.

Money came up quite a bit - their budget is quite tight and so they maximise every space they have and it was impressive what they had done with the spaces.

They obviously work very hard with crazy schedules and even though I don't watch River City I really enjoyed seeing the place and appreciated how they took the time to talk to us and I really respect that they work their asses off to make it work.