The reading for this week was “The 4th Industrial Revolution” written by Klaus Schwag.  It discusses the topic of a new revolution that will change the way we live, work, think and communicate.  He also outlines the challenges for growth in innovation when it comes to ethics and legislation.

I am quite concerned for the future of workers with many industries making the move to replacing humans with robotics to make businesses more effective.  How will truck drivers make a living once transport is capable of driving itself autonomously?  How will journalists make a living if Artificial Intelligence does the writing instead?  There is already a trend in the employment market with full-time work being replaced by casual, part-time and contract labor hire.  It could get to the point where technology and robotics create too much unemployment, which in turn creates social turmoil and chaos in an economic sphere.

We also see on the digital platform where corporations feel free to violate government legislation and avoid paying taxes.  Uber has caused major disruption throughout the world using technology to distribute their sharing service.  They provide a service that requires using infrastructure payed by the taxpayers.  But on the same token they refuse to pay taxes which in turn keeps this infrastructure maintained.  Governments are faced with the difficult challenge of collecting taxes on these type of businesses.  Tax havens will eventually have to be eradicated and loopholes closed to create an even playing field.  Similar online services are rapidly growing and creating new sharing facilities.  But employment from these services are usually contracted and free from the protections that trade unions have been fighting for over the past century.

The reliance on the internet also plays a factor on equality within a society.  Those that have no internet connection will basically be left behind.  The gap between rich and poor could be even more divided if internet services aren’t provided to everyone across the globe.  I fear that more people will be underemployed in the future and the gap will just keep growing.  It could be similar to the first industrial revolution where workers are gathering outside factories with their hands in the air hoping to be employed for the day.  Oh how I wish I was born a baby boomer instead.  Life was so much more uncomplicated.

For our project I was in the writing group for the sketch comedy show ‘Sketchy Students’. I was teamed up with fellow classmates Jordan, Liam, Michael and Angus. The concept itself was pitched to be a mockumentary show like ‘The Office’ and ‘Summer Heights High’. But somehow it morphed into just being more like a sketch comedy show with hardly any similarities to a mockumentary style at all. Then there was some debate on what the genre of this show was actually going to be. I preferred the mockumentary style but other people thought it was better to have a cross between sketch and mockumentary. I preferred to go with one or the other; both genres mixed together seemed a bit odd to me. This format has never been done successfully before but this is what certain people wanted.

I’m not really a fan of sketch shows and I thought that some of our ideas were quite restricted when it came to writing comedy. The jokes had to be politically correct, non-discriminate, non-offensive, non-stereotypical, no swearing clean humour. So many restrictions bored the crap out of me. Too much political correctness is bad for comedy and just makes for bland humour. It just seemed like we were trying to play it too safe and the comedy was affected as a result. We were targeting an audience between the ages of 15 to 24. But I think this type of sketch comedy is better suited to a younger audience between the ages of 8 to 15.

I was also disenchanted with some of the decisions made in the editing process. One of my drafts was basically put aside with no feedback at all. Then a new draft appeared that wasn’t even remotely like the one I wrote. This left me feeling quite agitated and I lost interest in the project. It felt like there were too many opinions on what should actually be included in the script. Coming to a general consensus with five writers and three people from the management group was never going to work well.  My opinion is that the writers should have been given more power to decide how the final draft should play out.

The feedback from people who weren’t in the writing group was also incorporated into the scripts all too often. It should have been the writers’ decision on what feedback to take in. It would have been more ideal to have more face-to-face time with everyone to discuss management and script decisions. I think some other members of our group were also disenchanted with some of the decisions being made as well. When the writers finally had more influence on the final draft in the last episode, it turned out to be the best one.   But overall it was a good learning experience and I think the production team did a great job with the material provided.

The last episode of ‘Sketchy Students’ aired on the net last night and I have to say it was easily the best one out of the four episodes.  But for the writers it was quite a battle to have some of these scenes in the final draft.  There was also a scene I noticed that was left out and wasn’t informed on this.  Maybe the production team were having some trouble filming this particular scene but I’m only guessing.  Im glad that we stuck to our guns to have certain scenes remain in the final episode and I think it has paid off.  There was debate whether Mark was being too nasty to throw Dorians work out.  Also some people thought Morty’s scene was stereotypical of a goth.  But I’m glad political correctness was put aside for once as these scenes worked well in the episode.

I also think the mockumentary element in this episode was utilised a lot better than previous episodes.  Maybe we were finally starting to find the right tone of the show by the last episode and had a better sense of how the characters were developing.  There were a few gags in this episode that were edited or left out that I thought could have remained.  Apparently it was too offensive to have Imma Nohere paying someone to do his assignment.  Don’t ask me why.  I didn’t think the Spotify gag was funny but it was insisted to be included.  But overall I thought the last episode was definitely heading in the right direction.  I was also impressed with the production quality.  They did a great job.  Hopefully it will now go viral.  Share, share, share!

1.1k views and climbing

The 4th project ‘Sketchy Students’ has been quite a challenging process for our class to produce.  I’m under the impression that the episodes are improving.  Each group continues to learn from the process and is gradually creating a better outcome as a whole.  I must admit I wasn’t too impressed with the pilot episode but the second episode is definitely an improvement with better quality in production and storyline.  There has been plenty of debate behind the scenes on what direction this show is going.  It appears that the mockumentary element has all but disappeared which I find a bit disappointing.  But the production team are doing a great job with the limited time and resources.  Some of the acting has been quite entertaining as well.

The third episode was also an improvement but I think the Imma Nowhere joke didn’t really hit the mark.  This character was meant to be someone that never turns up to class then suddenly appears out of the blue.  I think we could have written this segment better.  But Jordan made the scene quite amusing with his acting skills.  I was also surprised to find out that the behind-the-scene footage was getting more views on social media than the show itself.  Whether this is a real concern is up for debate.  I think it is a worry if people are enjoying the behind-the-scene footage more than the actual show.  But if this aspect attracts more of an audience then who am I to complain?  In any case it is interesting to know all the broadcasting figures that are now so easily attainable on social media.

This video has had the most views so far in the series.

I was flying my drone and taking some nice pictures of Hanging Rock for my photo assignment.  The battery was getting quite low and I lost vision of where my drone actually was.  But I thought no need to panic, all I have to do is hit the home button on my control and it will fly right back to me.  If only it was that easy.  I hit the home button and I could see on my screen that the drone was slowly making its way back.  But suddenly I noticed that the drone was starting to land on top of a tree.  OH NOOOO!!!  I went into panic mode and tried to press the cancel button.  But CRASH, it was too late and the screen went black.

I heard the noise of the drone hitting the tree and my gut churned.  These drones aren’t cheap to fix.  I went over to find the drone in the group of trees to evaluate what damage had been done.  All the propellers had snapped, the camera had fallen off, the shell was slightly damaged and luckily there was no one around.  But at least I managed to take some decent pictures.  Next time I never lose the line of sight again and make sure I have adequate power for my drone to come back.  It is a costly mistake but all part of the learning process.

A few of the photos captured before the dreaded crash.

I recently went to a meeting about creating a webisode series that was held by the Australian Writers Guild.  They had special guests informing the audience on how to start a web series and get funding. The panel was made up of the following people:

Mike Cowap, Investment Manager for Screen Australia (Interactive and Multiplatform)
Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell (Bruce)
Trudy Hellier and Maria Theodorakis (Little Acorns)
Michael Shanks and Nicholas Issell (The Wizards of Aus)

They talked about what type of funding is available for web content, the players who are commissioning these platforms and what kind of structure these episodes form.  The writers also talked about there own experience on how they received funding.  They also talked and the future of their shows and the interest they have had from media networks.  It seems like comedy is usually the genre choice for the successful webisodes.  The powers that provide funding usually favour pitches that already have a large following on platforms like YouTube or Facebook.  Media companies  like an idea or story if it already has an audience for it.  It was a good learning process hearing the writers talk about their experiences.  One aspect I admired about some of the writers was that they invested their own time and money to get their stories produced.  It is a tough decision to make whether to invest your own money into a project, especially if you haven’t got much money.  Overall it was an informative event that left me feeling inspired.

A screenshot from ‘The Wizards of Aus’.

The current method of feedback being applied to our writing group has been quite problematic.  There has been a few problems in what content should be edited, who has the final say in the editing process and who decides what is actually in the final draft.  At the moment there seems to be no systemic order on how the final script is delivered.  Everyone has differing opinions on what content should be changed or included.  The management provide feedback and the writers also have their own feedback.  But who do you listen too?  It just seems to be way too confusing on which feedback to incorporate into the script.  The amount of writers in the group is also making an impact on achieving a general consensus.

So I suggested that we have certain roles for each script then rotate them for each episode.  This is a summary of the process we decided to use for future scripts :

• Pitch the ideas and write a simple draft as a group.
• Assign a script writer to write a second draft.
• Feedback would be provided by everyone.
• A script editor would then complete a third draft based on all the feedback.
• Management receive this draft and then give the all clear whether or not it is the final draft.

Hopefully this process makes it less confusing and creates  a better outcome for writing future episodes.

Sketchy Students has been produced and ready to view for the online community.  The groups have incorporated a diverse use of online platforms to try and capture a wider audience for this series.  Applications like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Weebo have been useful tools to spread the word out there.  We have been encouraged to share and like all the aspects of Sketchy Students to help attract more viewers.  But this show isn’t targeted towards my demographic so i’m quite reluctant to share it among my friends on social media.  I also think that the original concept has somehow diverted to what was originally planned.  I am not a real fan of sketch comedy and am finding it a challenge to come up with funny content for the tone of this particular series.

It is a good experience for myself to try and write material that I have limited skill in delivering.  The other members of the group are enthusiastic pitching ideas for the show to each other which makes the process more enjoyable.  But I feel that maybe there are too many writers for a show that only has episodes running for around 2 minutes.  The pilot episode was produced well and had a few funny moments but it isn’t really my thing.  But for me the challenge is to write for this type of audience to the best of my capabilities.

PILOT EPISODE

I decided to join the writers group for the production of Sketchy Students.  I thought that I would be able to contribute better in this group as I have had previous education in screenwriting.  All up there were five of us in this group.  It seems a bit overboard to have five people write four episodes that only last two to three minutes but it will be interesting to see how it goes.  The upside to having this many people on the writing team is that more ideas can be brainstormed in regards to the storyline and the gags.  But it might prove to be quite a strain to figure out how the roles are going to be divided when writing the scripts.  Most television productions usually consist of two to three writers for episodes up to an hour.  So maybe the best way to write the scripts for this series would be to rotate the roles between script writer and script editor.  It will be interesting for the learning process to see whether it can work effectively to have so many writers for a short sketch comedy.  Only the future will tell.

For our 3rd and 4th project our class decided to do a collaboration in making a web series called Sketchy Students.  The format is going to be a cross between sketch comedy and mockumentary about a class in University.  There will be a total of four episodes and it will consist of being between 2 to 3 minutes per episode.  We plan on expanding the show across all social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to try and obtain a larger audience.  Our lecturer Mark Poole reluctantly agreed to perform the role of the teacher.  All the other roles will be done by the students in the class.  After some discussion in class the majority of us decided that it would be best to divide into groups to make this show.  The groups were divided in the following categories.

• Production
• Writing
• Social Media
• Management

The writing group would be in charge of developing the scripts for the show.  The production teams job was to produce the content to screen.  The social media team covered the digital content and cross platform delivery.  The Management team would make sure everything was running on schedule and help manage the process.  Our aim is to learn the process of delivering a show on a cross platform environment.