My story took inspiration from a small series script I started writing in college and found the summer before third year began. At the time, it was written without any planning, based purely on instinct and a sudden burst of inspiration - it was the first script I had ever written and I held it in quite high regard. It followed Sarah as she moved to a new town with her mum and step-dad and quickly fell in with a close-knit but welcoming group of friends with whom she decided to attend the local college in the next academic year - the story followed the summer as Sarah initiated herself within the group. It heavily focused on the relationships surrounding the group, both as friends and romantic/sexual relationships - and more than frequently, where those boundaries blurred. It was heavily inspired by Skins, a show that was very important during my adolescence, and I also wrote several smaller, (usually one-scene/location) 'supporting' scripts centering solely around one of the main cast - similar to the format of Skins, each episode being named after and mostly following an individual character. Upon re-reading the script over summer I was disappointed to find that it, obviously, was not as ground-breaking as I had believed when writing it and more resembled a bunch of friends sitting around, smoking and gossiping than skins - or any other television show for that fact. However, the pride I had initially felt in writing that script was one of the big factors in me deciding to come to university and the characters were still hugely important to me and I felt they deserved a better story.
In order to make the story more exciting and relevant to myself as the writer, I decided to update it; knowing immediately I wanted to follow university students and wanting to show main character, Sarah struggling to deal with the information that she was failing her course - a situation I had found myself recently.
Immediately this presented a couple of problems to me: at what point of their university story do we join them? as freshers in halls, meeting each other as we do? (a location and aspect of student life I have noticed largely absent within British student television) or as already established friends in third year when pressure is at it's highest and the implications of failure even more devastating? The other problem was in making a story so personal to me relevant and approachable for a mainstream audience.
As mentioned I have noticed an absence in student halls as a location in British university television. Fresh Meat for example, centres specifically around a group of students who, for their own various reasons were not eligible for halls. I wonder perhaps if this is an issue in locating a halls block that would be available to film in - as most British youth shows are generally shot on location. However I feel it could be quite interesting, easily offering the capability for a variety of supporting characters and being a relatively intense social boiling pot, where young people, most of whom are living independently for the first time in their life are forced to co-habitate and co-ordinate varying lifestyles and home expectations against others. Despite this, I personally felt it held more power in a sitcom kind of story and wanted to set the story in the group's second year - where friendships are established but still fairly new, and the stress of living together in an actual house can intensify the perhaps fragile bonds, also being able to call on personal experiences oh sharing a house with uni friends and how can that can impact the ability to work. I also like the idea of coming into a group of pre-existing friends as I think it starts the audience with almost one hand behind their backs, having to learn about the characters relationships as they're hitting boiling points, hopefully heightening the intended emotional impact. I also considered that by starting in second year and not third, when the potential jeopardy of failure would be more dramatic I figured that starting during second year open up the possibility of more seasons if the story was successful.
Several aspects of the original script maintained, if not evolved or have been referenced in the newer version. Sarah's 'broken' family and history with her father as a drunk, abusive figure whom time has covered flattered most generously through her young mind. However, this time this is explored further - the realisation of the real reason he left being a major moment in her journey towards passing and self-betterment. I have also taken this idea of a non-traditional family and echoed it through other characters, opening doors for character frictions, comparisons & contrasts and also, I believe, adding an air of realism not normally seen on TV which tends towards the more 'nuclear' family dynamics. To heighten tensions and draw conflicts surrounding this issue I also plan to use Natalie's character to try and push the house into acting as an 'alternative-family' unit, to varying reception from the group. I hope to be able to use this as a catalyst for the major story aspects relating to family but also as a way to address and explore the idea of alternative families in relation to the queer characters identities - an important aspect in trying to make my piece more relevant to modern audiences.
Whilst Sarah trying to find her place within an already tight-knit group of friends was a key factor of my original script, I decided to try and subvert this through starting the story in second year, when these fresh relationships experience the new strain of living together under a shared roof. The relationships that existed in the group and how Sarah's appearance impacted them was also an important factor of my original story; I maintained the relationships the characters were in and decided not to have any friends/partners living elsewhere to again try to and intensify the tensions placed on them. Whilst removing the idea of a third party impacting on these relationships, I instead wanted to look at how self-pressures could strain them instead, for example Jack's insecurity surrounding her intelligence leads her to betray her girlfriend Beth, after she had to help Jack achieve a high grade to make up for her recklessness.
In removing the friends from a town they'd lived in all their life and moving them to a university context, I had to figure out how they would be different without necessarily such a supportive group around them for their formative years and how the two relationships could be different without such strong pre-existing foundations.
One of the main reasons my initial script suffered initially, and especially when coming back to it, was the lack of planning and structure. I had written it mostly on the fly and as the season progressed I found myself not knowing how to progress. In order to give my story some structure to feel more informed, and confident in the way I was preparing my characters and story I decided to consult 'Into the Woods', a book about scriptwriting that covers act structures, characters, writing dialogue etc.
This book was very beneficial to me and formative in the way I approached the initial planning and outlining of my story and characters. Initial story structure was inspired from this book, and I decided to follow five act structure because it provides a reliable structure to the story, promoting change and progression within characters in a comfortably entertaining manner.
This book informed how to structure my characters in a way that helped them factor into each other stories in an effective way. For example, one of the main ideas I wanted to convey was that the biggest dangers to these characters was their own ego and intended self-image. However, I also wanted certain housemates to provoke and antagonise other characters so that they could project their anger and insecurity and increase the eventual intended feeling of separation between them. QUOTE FROM THE BOOK ABOUT OPPOSITION CREATING CONFLICT. This helped me decide that Beth would help both Sarah and Jack with their work - to the same academic response but different personal reactions and also informed the contrast between Jack and Beth's characters. Whereas I think the similarities of Natalie and Ryan's characters are quite immediately noticed, Jack and Beth seem like opposite forces that clash more than compliment each other - this can make them appear to audiences at first as if they will be antagonistic forces to each other, becoming more complicated as their romantic involvement becomes clear.
29/10 - Following pitch, tutorial discussing character and story plan.
- Consider your characters more – what do they all study? Sarah - ‘it doesn’t matter, I'm failing’ ala Chandler from Friends Beth – Business (lots of work and promising future, contrasting Jack’s art) Jack – Modern Art (frequent excuse for actions - ‘it’s just art’) Natalie – Corporate Law (cold to contrast warm personality) Ryan – Food (Fell in love with cooking when forced into as naughty teen, lies because doesn’t think it’s masculine enough subject)
- Where is this set? - Suggested watching’The Living Soap’ Observational doc looking at students sharing a house while studying at Manchester uni
- Inspired thinking about house and how it affected relationships, turning into it’s own character. Keeping messes, moving furniture and growing (Jack adding table, table getting beaten up etc)
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