Finding a Purpose | Tutorial #1

Before we could go any further with our ideas, we had to have a discussion with Simon about them and about our plans for this term and next.

Before going into the tutorial, all three of us went through our idea in order to make sure we were all on the same page as one another. Due to us working in a group we were able to go in together and have a group tutorial rather than individual ones.

Firstly, we mentioned what roles we would like to take on during this project.
Laura will be the Producer & co-writer.
Nisserin will be the DOP.
I will be the director & co-writer.
Then Josh will come in during the second term and edit the video.

We then when on to talk about our genre and initial idea on doing a sitcom. Simon mentioned the matter of sitcoms usually being no longer than half an hour long, whereas our video would have to be no longer than 20 minutes. This is something we will have to consider when researching into other shows and TV channels, and also when we work out how our pilot will be written.
The idea of writing a shorter pilot than the rest of the series could potentially be one we go with, as it allows the rest of the series to have half hour episodes and we only have to shoot a maximum of 20 minutes for the pilot.

When telling him about our main idea 'David and Jackie', one of the main and first questions he asked us was 'Why do we watch David & Jackie?'.
This question did make us think, and we realized we hadn't actually thought about that point. We needed to find why David & Jackie are so important and interesting for people to want to watch their lives unfold.
This was the biggest point that came out of the tutorial, as it was basically the base of the idea. Once we had come up with a reason as to why the audience would want to watch this show and these characters, everything else would unfold from there. We would develop so much more of our story and idea once this question was answered.

He mentioned to us a TV sitcom called 'Terry and June', which introduced the idea of these characters trying to succeed in life. This could be something to work from and we might be able to develop an idea from this show.
Another show that we briefly discussed was 'Only Fools and Horses', in which the characters make a "living by selling dodgy good believing that [in the following year] they will be millionaires." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081912/ 
This is also something we can look into which will hopefully then aid us into finding an answer to our question.

Coming away from this tutorial, we need to think about why the audience would want to watch this couple and why they would be intrigued in the story. We have decided to think about this answer individually and then come together and talk as a group to narrow down the ideas and come up with one set idea.