Fictional Pitch of factual idea.

Having all written factual pitches for Helen, we were asked to translate them to a fictional idea, i chose to make my "Aints to Saints" documentary idea into a feature length movie.

Disaster strikes as NFL team the Saints have to rebuild their team and stadium from the ground up. Do they now have what it takes to beat the world and win the Superbowl?

Panorama - I helped my daughter to die

We watched an episode of Panorama, entitled "I helped my daughter to die", which focussed upon the story of Kay Gilderdale and how she assissted in the suicide of her daughter, Lynn. The story raised important points about the legalisation of euthenasia, including the case regarding Debbie Purdy and her wanting clarification on the law regarding euthenasia, as she wanted to be sure her husband would not be prosecuted. Barroness Campbell also figured, as she has been prominent throughout a number of euthenasia cases.

Having studied the law on euthenasia during a-level law I already knew of Debbie Purdy and Barroness Campbell, so had a decent understanding of what was going on, and the ramifications for assissting suicide.

We were given the task of writing a radio times billing for the episode -

Jeremy Vine follows Kay Gilderdale on her journey as she faces a charge for the attempted murder of her daughter, Lynn. With input from Debbie Purdy and Baroness Campbell.

Spaced Treatment

Tim Bisley and Daisy Steiner are two London twenty-somethings who meet in a cafe while both are flat hunting, Tim having just broken up with his girlfriend, and Daisy because she is having trouble with her fellow squatters. Despite the fact that they have only just met, they agree to ry and persuade landlady Marsha Klein that they are a young professional couple, in order to meet the stipulations of an advert for a relatively cheap flat at 23 Meteor Street in Tufnell Park.

Brian Topp, an eccentric artist, also resides in the building on the ground floor, where he works on his art. Tim and Daisy are frequently visited by Brian, along with Tim's bestfriend Mike Watt, a weapons fanatic and member of the territorial army. Twist Morgan is also a regular visitor to the "couple" as she is Daisy's best friend, and also Brian's girlfriend. Tim and Daisy constantly stress to everyone other than Marsha that they are not a couple, but sexual tension is inevitable due to their living situation.

The show depicts the antics of the group, using quite surrealhumour, somewhat similar to that of "The Young Ones". Although Tim and Daisy claim to be budding comic book artists and aspiring writers resectively, they rarely pursue any work related to these ambitions, instead preferring to pass the time in seemingly pointless activities, particularly going to the pub. The comedy tends to stem from their undertaking of these mundane actions, which turn into comical situations time and again, never ceasing to amuse the audience.

"Spaced" pitch

One Monday morning, we arrived to find that we would be watching "Spaced", which was obviously a massive shame for us all! Having never seen "Spaced" I wasn't sure what to expect, but i really enjoyed it, as it was my kind of comedy.

We were then given the task of writing a pitch for spaced. Mine read - Comedy drama series about the escapades of five twenty-somethings living in London, with fast paced and surreal comedy. Think "The Young Ones" meets "Blackadder".

Newspaper research

We were given a brief to look through some newspapers and find a story that interested us, and then to write a pitch for either a documentary or a drama to do with that story or an issue that we felt that story raised.

Initially i had 3 ideas:

- The rise and fall of John Terry as he went from enthusiastic youngster, to leader of his country and role model, and then to something of a villain as he cheated on his wife with a friend, and national teammates, girlfriend.

- Portsmouth football club and how they have gone from winning the FA cup, to being debt ridden, having had 5 owners in the space of half a season, and are now facing the prospect of not being around any longer

- The New Orleans Saints and how they went from being the laughing stock of the NFL, to winning the super bowl, via the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

I decided to go with the New Orleans Saints idea as that also highlighted the damage done by the hurricane, and could also be relevant after the recent Haiti disaster.

My pitch was:

For forty years, the New Orleans Saints were the laughing stock of the NFL, then the devastation of Hurricane Katrina sent the city into despair. We follow their journey as they look to recover and make it to their first Super Bowl.

I envisaged the documentary being an hour long, and airing on channel 5, and it would be called "Aint's to Saints"

In Sequence Filming

Filmed a piece called "My Real Life" in sequence, with Casey. It was about a girls life through which she has had different foster parents, and abusive step dads and gone through other hardships such as drug taking.

Considering we had to do all the editing in camera, and we only had the use of an internal microphone, i was happy with how the piece looked. I would have preferred to have had the use of proper sound equipment so as to have louder and clearer audio quality, and also so that background noise such as traffic would have been less not noticeable.

Also i would have liked to have had the chance to edit the film properly so that we could have added some music for the opening titles and end credits.