Wednesday 6th Jan

Kirk had the idea to create a checklist for each of our roles. This meant we had to write up everything we thought we would have to do, then tick things off when we had done them. As Iam the co-chair for the various meetings, my main roles are to make sure everyone gets to say their opinion and make sure nobody is dominating the ideas board with their own thing.

I am also a cameraman, so it would be my job to make sure we have blank tapes, charged batteries and make sure the cameras work and everything. I am going to do some test shoots during the character screen tests, so i know the camera works, and also so we can re-watch the auditions and decide who we think could play the part at a later date, should we need to.

We got split into two groups, one group was to go into another room and work on scriptwriting and casting, and my group was to stay and do some market research. The other group spent a lot of time trying to decide upon characters and storylines for the first episode, and when they came in it all seemed quite hectic. The phrase "in every episode" came up a few times, including a flash back, an escape attempt and introducing several new characters per episode. It seemed like it could work for an actual TV show, but not for a webisode that is only going to be 3 minutes long. they also described a scene where someone would throw a pencil case at one of the characters who would then go nuts and start breaking things and throwing stuff all over the place, which i didn't think would work. When asked about it, they were only planning on it being a few seconds of him freaking out, so i felt better about it after some more explanations.

We spent a lot of time trying to decide on a name for the series, and we came up with 2. The Regulars and Detention Deficit. As we need a 75% majority vote for any decisions to pass, it took a while for everyone to agree on a name. We almost got a vote for Detnetion Deficit, until someone suggested having 'The' Detention Deficit instead. I hate this name. Detention Deficit sounds alright, you don't really think about it, however with the 'The' on the start, it makes you emphasise the Detention Deficit thing more, so you think about it and it doesn't make any sense. It was suggested that saying Detention Deficit was a mouthful, so i don't understand how making it longer makes it any easier to say. I am strongly against the name of the show, but as most people just wanted to go home, none of them could be bothered to argue and let it slide. I am somewhat worried this project is just going to be whatever James and Hayden want it to be because nobody apart from me can be bothered to argue with them.

I was looking at the websites for some of the other webisodes we have watched. I looked at www.watchtheguild.com, the website for, believe it or not, The Guild. It was pretty good. At the top, was a banner, linking you to amazon to buy the series on DVD, and another website where you can buy shirts from or featuring the show. They had the newest episode in a viewer on the main page, with a list of older episodes next to it. They had a section for updates, so they could post news or features, an RSS feed, and links to follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. They also had several tabs at the top of the screen with contact info, characters biographies, forums and press.

The other group were throwing ideas around about the opening title sequence, and someone came up with the idea of a teacher writing the title of the show on a blackboard at the end of it, so you don't have to have him feature in the show. This is so similar to the opening of Mind Your Language, where you are introduced to the characters and then the teacher writes the title on the board, i think they actually stole it and hoped nobody had seen the show.


I was trying to figure out where we could market our show, and we decided we could use online forums and social networking. Websites were easiest to think of, some including Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Flickr, Facepunch, 4Chan, Reddit and Twitter. People also suggested in magazines, but that would be far too expensive in my opinion. We then thought we could make a different profile for each character on FaceBook or MySpace, so they can be updated by the actor or someone who knows the role. This would make the hype even greater, as people could then suggest new ideas for the next episode.

I thought about additional content, and decided having a news feed and a blog would be good, we could upload photos of the cast, and i think having a sort of behind the scenes video done by one of the characters could be quite good. It could be done with a handheld camera aimed at himself, then he just wanders around and whispers about what's going on. I think that would be quite interesting for people who like the show, as they could see who the show is actually being made by and what kind of equipment we are using so it seems more real. We also thought about merchandise, but i don't think it is a good idea unless there is demand for it. There's no point buying 200 T-Shirts if we aren't going to sell any, it would be better if we waited for someone to ask if we did merch and then get it on demand.

We had a bit of an argument about the characters, as the only reason we came to a decision about the detention room idea, was on the condition that the secret agent thing stayed, and the character guys seemed to have removed him. Again, once this was explained, they had simply given him some other traits to make it work smoother and i was alright with it.