BSA325 W3 : The Disasters of Committee Writing

This week I started attending this class, before I wasn't sure if I could, seeing how few other subjects I had this semester I decided to go for it.

At the moment I have no specific role, although I have put my name down for Audio and Catering (not so sure about the latter, it will be a lot of work, although it sounds like there are quite a good selection of individuals to ask for help). Catering will also be a very good experience for me in terms of budgeting and working with the more managerial side of things.

In class we looked at a short film, then went through the pre-production toolkit provided by Celtx.



We seem to be going for a Pixar style, we were also asked to look for some good short films.

Lastly there was a discussion about the story, which I wasn't involved in really since I had no say at the start, however I did notice what was making the process so difficult.

With a proper movie the director or writer has a specific story and style in mind for what they want to make, everyone else comes on board to help them achieve that vision. This is not the case with how our project is being executed, the committee works like a democracy on the story, everyone seems to have equal say and because of this things are getting pulled in all different directions. There is not really any core idea of vision for what the film should be, as such the suggestions people make seem to vary wildly in terms of content and direction.

Everyone had their own idea in their head, and given the chance to brainstorm start developing a personal project that doesn't align with what anyone else wants. Everyone has a great idea I'm sure, but we can't make all of them.

I know this because of hearing what 'solutions' people came up with, but also because I found myself doing this in class. I caught ends of what people said since I had to leave class for a while to attend a one-on-one session for research. This and the rest of the conversation resulted me in imagining what I would do if I was in charge - and I liked it a lot. But I also realised that if I pitched this it wouldn't be heard out properly and that people would most likely disagree.

If anyone of us was in charge and everyone else was working towards achieving their vision I believe it would work out very well, unfortunately no one currently seems to be.

In short this isn't working, and I have spoken to some other individuals one-on-one (higher ups/ the producers and director), I pointed out what i noticed and they seemed to be both aware of it and in agreeance with me that it's running the way it should.

Funnily enough the one thing that everyone seems to be in agreement of is that this is how it should work though, so I don't know why everything is being run as a committee. If we just brought that up and agreed to let the creative power lie with the director and everyone works towards his vision, I think we'd not only be on schedule now, but that we'd also produce something good.