Monday 24th November
Monday morning for me was being cooped up in bed, feeling awful with a torrid virus. Or flu, I wasn’t sure but it wasn’t very nice. Either way I didn’t want to waste my time feeling sorry for myself in bed without writing something.
I meddled with different scenarios and storylines for Lemonhead. I felt the storyline was lacking something unique. It’s essentially a coming of age story that deals with certain mental aspects such as anxiety and social acceptance. Though I feel the main character, Jamie needed a new objective. He makes the decision to move to a new town, with a new job in a new setting but is underwhelmed at what he finds. Originally he just went with it but he needed a new reason to stay. But what that reason was I still had at the back of my mind somewhere.
Tuesday 25th November
I was still feeling rough today but the night before I had a flurry of thoughts crossing my mind. The main reason Jamie moves is for the job which he believes is in the games industry. Turns out it’s just a support role for a mobile gaming app and is not what he wanted. The other incentive for staying is that he’s living with Sonny, another game developer.
So I decided to add a new sub-plot the story. Both Jamie and Sonny work together to make an independent game together. I’m very passionate about the indie game community and felt this was the perfect niche to Lemonhead. By adding an indie game development storyline to the mix the program I can introduce a whole new audience of gamers to the show. I was also influenced by Silicon Valley from HBO, which has a similar premise, but more about starting a tech company.
Wednesday 26th November
Honestly, my attention was towards the entrepreneurial debate that was taking place today. I had to put Lemonhead on hold and concentrate on arguing against Welsh culture encouraging creative entrepreneurship.
Thursday 27th November
Today I wrote notes for the independent game storyline. The idea I had in mind was that Jamie will come up with the idea of starting a computer game with Sonny. They will use an idea they had back in university and use Kickstarter to help fund it. From personal experience running a Kickstarter can be very stressful and adding this storyline to the storyline would be a key factor to Jamie’s mental breakdown later in the series. I didn’t think there was enough pressure on him for that to happen and again this gives the story something new.
I also helped write some lines for a video game that I’ve been working on. This involved descriptions for certain items you look at, dialogue between characters and puzzle design.
So far we’ve met our tutors and discussed our Final Major Project. This will be a final script that can either be a film, a TV series, a theatre piece or radio script. My eyes have opened up already and although I had bases for film and television ideas in my head it’s beginning to become apparent that working in theatre and TV maybe a less trickier path into the industry. Having worked in theatre before as an actor I would like to write a piece to be performed on a stage. And as for radio, it’s certainly a path worth thinking about as you’re more likely to get something on the radio than television. Food for thought I guess. Though my Final Major Project – which I won’t reveal details of at this moment – will be a television series that I’m really excited to start writing about.