We are becoming more and more comfortable with our goals moving forward. With help from our mentors our to-do list has grown but our stress is shrinking (thank God). We have been able to streamline our ideas to make our goals more concise. 

Shuhei shared with us games that utilize hidden content that could be applied to our project. For this week we want to define the season game break while brainstorming hidden easter eggs throughout the show. This will help with tightening up the connection between show and game. 

From our meeting with Sally, we concluded that we need to create a level loop for the game and to show a visual of the map of Knowhere. Breaking down each portion of the game will help us better comprehend how it will be played and how it ties in with the show. 

We are excited to get this week started!

One of the best moments of this past week at STL happened during the weekend. It was a funny and exciting "Eureka!" moment where all advices Kris Pearn gave us in his first mentorship and all the work we had been doing on the script structure finally came to fruition. Thank you, Kris!

We know, we know. That screenshot looks chaotic. But trust us, there's some order in it and we may have found the ultimate structure! At least for now... 

We are three weeks in and could not be happier with how things are going. The mentors have been so helpful to not only give us new ideas but to streamline the ones we already had. As of right now we are taking all the advice and suggestions and applying it to our project to hopefully create a stronger, more effective concept!

For the first two weeks, I've mainly been in and out of zoom meetings with my co-writers Brian and Alex. This video shows a brief journey of how the screenwriting is going to date and what changes I'm making to. My next step is to finalise a screenplay for my cold open animation and time it, so its under 3 minutes. Looking forward to showing you the progress on this. Till next time :) 

After an amazingly informative talk with Kevin this morning, I have some new goals when it comes to working in Unreal Engine.

Kevin reminded me how powerful unreal is, so I have some exciting new production techniques to implement.

But more urgently, I'd like to ensure that I have the moodboards for the visual style I want in Family britannia, completely finished and nailed this week. If I can complete the moodboards and animatic for my cold open done, we will be off to the races for sure! Looking forward to it :)

Hey guys, hope your'e well. Thought I'd continue my diary entry's by uploading my updated pitch bible. The annoying thing is, its 27MB (which is too big to upload) so for speed, I'm just going to give you the dropbox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rb5npq23gedffy/UPDATED_FAMILY_BRITANNIA_PITCH_BIBLE_Jide_Johnson_25th_Jan.pdf?dl=0  

Since my kickoff call with the mentors and the THU hangout last friday, this document has been updated in the following ways.

1. The audience for the show (target broadcasters) is now crystal clear.

2. Edwards backstory is now more clearly spelled out.

3. Therefore his core wounds and motivations are more apparent.

4. How the rest of the family tie in to his tech startup has also been spelled out.

This is a work in porgress people, so feel free to rip it to shreds again and throw any critique at me you may wish. I'm here to learn and grow. Thanks :)

These past two weeks have been nothing but highlights. Meeting with our mentors, talking with the tribe members, and hearing about the Carmela and Family Britannia projects really proved THU is something truly incredible. Elizabeth and I have taken so much away from each meeting and are eager to apply it to Knowhere, USA. The most exciting part for us was probably getting to pitch to all the mentors along with getting our first round of feedback. We are so inspired from everyone that was there and can’t wait to hear more!

With the kickoff meeting being behind us Elizabeth and I were really able to dive into the nitty gritty of our project. This week we want to set up the key art and crossover content for the show and video game while exploring the content break for seaon one. While Elizabeth focuses on the location and character art I will be researching real life experts that will be highlighted in each episode throughout season one. We also start our one-on-one meetings this week! We are so excited to hear from Sally and Shuhei about what they have been thinking in regards to our project!

Finish deciding on the prototype
Find a solution to get the physical photos from Spain
Get the physical photos from Spain (?)
Scan and check old photos, docs and digital photos and docs (?)
Research PCA's symptoms
Schedule a meeting with Dr. Aldrey to make sure the info is ok

Share script with Kris Pearn and work on it with him on Thursday

• Revise script beforehand and prepare questions

Decide on what music/sound design we want
Meet with Chrisna on Tuesday

Ask Vani to send us the Documentary Pitch bible Example
Start working on the Pitch Bible (Visual and Sound)

Start answering Mentor’s Kick-off Meeting questions

1. Kick off revise
2. Musica
3. Script
4. PCA Aldrey
5. Photos Spain
7. Start working on bible
8. Start answering mentors questions

And here is Paula's workspace! A small but cozy Parisian apartment on the sixth floor without an elevator... 

Welcome to Clara's London workspace! Plants, messiness and lot's of art are awaiting...

This week’s coolest moments were without a doubt, the Kick Off pitch and the Tribe pitch, and hearing everyone express how touched or connected they felt to our project.

A lot of people shared very personal and unique stories that relate to ours in one way or the other, and we think that’s the beauty of our project.

Thank you all so much.

Well, now that you’ve read all the theory… Want a little insight on how we dealt with it personally?

We’ll be honest. It wasn’t easy. It’s never easy to agree 100% with someone that you’re working with, even more so when you’re working with someone as close to you as your sister, and even more so when you’re working on such a personal and intense project.

We had a little bit of a meltdown on Tuesday, and all due to answering the list of questions that we had collected from Vani and David. To be more specific, we LOST IT when we had to answer the question “What do you want your audience to take away from your film?”. To have to answer that question in a way that both of us were happy with and satisfied, took us more time than answering all the others…

BUT we pushed on and got out of the hole together!

… and realized the whole thing happened because we thought we wanted different things from the project/we wanted to tell different things, when, in the end, it turned out to be that we wanted the same things all along, but have very different ways of expressing them and ourselves!

So HUGE THANKS to Vani and David for making us question what we know and what we want. It was tough, but it DEFINITELY worked.

We built a pitch that we were really proud of for the kick off meeting, and it was SO much WORTH IT!

We got amazing feedback from the Mentors and the Tribe. Here are some of their thoughts:

MENTORS:

• Loved that we had a deep understanding of what we want; that we want a teaser and a poster by the end of STL, which are feasible goals.

• Be open to feedback and changes.

• Think about the LENGTH of the documentary, see if it’s feasible to apply to which festivals with the length that we want. Maybe start with something shorter?

• Who is the audience that we are targeting it to?

• Include our point of view; we need to be able to relate to the sisters

• Share and work on the script

• Is it Carmela’s story or our version of her story?

• Be careful with the VFX, do it in a way that won’t distract from the story/won’t collide with the documentary style

• Sound/music is HALF of the film, it won’t work if it’s just people talking. Include it as part of the bible

• What is the visual style going to be? Get more specific with this

• A title that doesn’t reference just her?

TRIBE: Jesús, Aishwarya, Filipe and Inês gave us GREAT references that we need to check out and sound amazing (video games, comics, films…). Dilruba gave us a very interesting question to think about: “What was freedom for Carmela, even the most mundane things?”; Cephas brought back a point that we had heard on our kick off about the point of view of the film; and Shelley sent us some good feedback after the meeting (an example of a VFX that we could use and the idea that maybe the way to go is public/philanthropic funding rather than private).

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS WEEK!! ON TO THE NEXT ONE!

Week two is almost wrapped up and we could not be happier with all the feedback we have recieved. 

Both of us are so excited to get to work!

The last weeks has been super exciting and today I am pitching my story to the GURUs

Spent the last week writing and rewriting the screenplay, with the some advice from my screen consultant Brian, and some extra ideas from our "Ideas Man" Alex. Finally finished a draft I'm happy to show, but will be developing it from this point onwards.

Attached is the first page of my teaser. Hope it leaves you wondering whats to come next. 

Wish me luck in my pitch guys!

JJ

For week one, Elizabeth and I want to focus on setting a solid fondation for the next 10 weeks.

At the end of week one we want to:

(1) Finalizing our work schedule 

(2) Meet our Mentors 

(3) Pitch our idea and concept to our Sony Talent League Mentors 

We are both so excited to start the work and meet everyone who is going to help us get to our end goal!

We are both so excited to get started and extremely grateful for everyone that got us here!

Week 1 GOALS:

-Finish schedule
-Decide on prototype
-Clarify what we REALLY want with the mentor’s help
Kick off pitch (15 min)
-THU tribe pitch (10 min)

Let's go!

After a loooong and insightful videocall, these are some of our initial thoughts on the project and the Sony Talent League right before the first week starts. We cannot wait for the kick-off meeting with our mentors and the Tribe! And we may share with you other pieces of the videocall... We'l see! :)