MAN ALIVE - Storyboarding

Storyboarding

So far I have really enjoyed the unit and the freedom of creating a huge project without worrying about budget. As the writer and producer I have found it at times difficult not being involved with many visual aspects of the production. I had a chat with Lauren W and we discussed that I should help with the shot list for the storyboard to see my work visualised. This has been a fun experience, as we sat down together and re-read my teaser part of the script. I became very passionate about how I wanted to show these scenes unfolding and it was fun knowing my shots could include warehouses, LA police cars, Hollywood etc, which would not normally be used in a student project. We worked out the storyboard shot my shot and made a list for Lauren to work on drawing. The finished piece was actually quite emotional to watch because I was finally seeing my ideas that I have spent months writing, and it looked exactly how I had imagined thanks to our team work and Lauren's artistic skills. I don't want to ruin the surprise by uploading it just yet, but here are a few stills to give you a taste:

MAN ALIVE - Viral Marketing

We had another meeting yesterday and I am really proud of the progress we are both making!

In the afternoon I went make to Lauren W's house and we started to collaborate on the book we are making.

We made a start on the marketing side of things, and both discussed ideas we had based around the AMC's own marketing techiniques,  in terms of games and websites that are acessible and actually feature in the story.

With this in mind I came up with the idea for the Cellblock website, which features in the show.

As part of the Marketing Campaign for Man Alive, we would create a fully accessible website for Cellblock, the fictitious television programme created by The Network. As a key plotline, the inmates lives featured in COLDMARSH prison are voted for by the public. The viewers of Man Alive could access the voting website as seen in the show and vote themselves. These votes would then affect characters lives within Man Alive, making the show fully interactive, immersing the viewers as characters themselves.

The website would feature full prison menus that viewers could choose for each inmate, facts surrounding their case allowing them to make a decision on sentencing and a chart displaying activities open to the inmates with options for allowed yard time. Finally a vote can be cast to select inmates for Lockdown, which can affect the minor characters ultimate role in the games.

This website is designed in compliance with AMC’s fictitious websites featured in Breaking Bad and Walking Dead. It can also be downloaded from the Apple App Store and used on iPhones and iPads as seen below.

I then worked with Lauren on the design, suggesting the tabs and buttons to include and the video at the bottom. Her photoshop skills made it all come together and I am really happy with the finished product. We will be working on some more ideas this week. 

 

We also felt it important to show how the web content would be displayed  on an iPhone, as it becomes an increasingly important platform in today's media world. 

MAN ALIVE - TAG LINES

Today we also started to come together with our ideas on marketing. I suggested using my three main characters in the series, Ethan, Michael and Senator Lawson for the billboards, and Lauren has requested I come up with some tag lines that she can use in the posters with all three, and some for them individually like in this one, which I think is working extremely well. 

The taglines I am working on for the marketing campaign: 

TAG LINES

“1 Prison. 421 Cameras. Live. Twenty Four Seven”

Ethan Harper:

“1 Prison. 421 Cameras. To survive he needs your votes”

“To survive he needs your votes”

“Dying to win you over”

“Justice will not be served”

Senator Lawson:

“They took his life, now he wants theirs”

“His time is coming”

“Revenge is cold”

“Tables Have Turned”

Michael Harding:

“The time has come to vote”

“This December we face a defining decision”

“He will make or break us”

“A new hope, one vision”

“His blood runs blue”

All Three:

“America’s most wanted”

“Who will you vote for?”

“Everybody’s Watching”

MAN ALIVE - THE "In Progress" Pitch

MAN ALIVE

THE BRIEF

To create a production concept package for a new American satirical drama, “Man Alive”

“Man Alive” Is a 10-part mini-series for TV channel AMC.

Tagline

“1 Prison, 421 Cameras. To survive he needs your votes”

SYNOPSIS 

Ethan Harper is a dead man walking. The LAPD officer has been framed for the murder of James McCarthy, his partner. Now serving time on Death Row in the notorious COLDMARSH prison, Harper must find a way out to save his family. Only one thing is stopping him, 300 million viewers. 

SERIES 1

The Network, a global media corporation now controls the Prison System in the United States after a successful bid when the country was declared bankrupt. At a time where online and computer hacking has consumed peoples lives, The Network does not fight for justice, it fights for ratings.

Ethan Harper, a young successful LAPD officer has been caught in a game of cat and mouse after uncovering disturbing corruption among the force. After incarceration his only way out it to take part in the annual LOCKDOWN games. With the CEO of the Network running for presidency, interests in the Middle East demanding televised blood shed, corrupt officials running the justice system and a public addiction to social networking, “MAN ALIVE” looks at the dark side of a technology dependent America in ruins. 

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

LAUREN HOWARD

Producer/Writer

Show reasoning behind the decision made for scheduling and broadcaster

choice. With thorough research on the Network AMC and a study into their

programming remit, paying particular attention to “The Walking Dead” and

“Breaking Bad”; and showing how “Man Alive” would fit within their remit.

To write a pilot script of the opening episode of “Man Alive”. With detailed

research into existing scripts for American television series.

To write the full synopsis for the 10-part mini-series and provide a treatment

for each episode.

To write the main character biographies in detail and make relevant casting

choices.

To oversee marketing strategies and content, online content, branding

content and sponsorship decisions.

LAUREN WOODFALL

Producer/Production Design/Branding

To create a distinctive brand for “Man Alive”, showing thought processes,

initial designs and ideas, and reasoning behind each choice made.

To create the title sequence, with research into the companies which

provide title sequences. Initial storyboards will be made with test shoots.

To explore marketing techniques used by AMC programmes and apply this

research to our own brand. A mock-up website page for our programme on

AMC’s website, innovative new ways of pushing our brand through extra

content such as applications for iPhones and iPads. To generate ideas for

viral marketing campaigns and interesting promotional techniques for

posters, billboards and digital banners.

Creating the visual style, by using mood boards, test shoots, creating

“looks” in editing.

Storyboarding key scenes within the pilot episode.

PACKAGE COMPONENTS

A full pilot episode script

.

AMC channel research and programming remit

.

Schedule showing “Man Alive’s” placement

.

Synopsis for the 10-part mini series, with a treatment for each episode in case files

.

Full Character Bio’s and appropriate casting in the form of wanted posters

.

A DVD of the opening title sequence

.

Visual style mood board

.

A DVD with test shoots

.

Storyboards for key scenes within the pilot episode

.

Final branded logo design

.

Initial ideas and research into branding for American programming

.

Mock up design of AMC branded website page for “Man Alive”

.

Mock application ideas for use on tablet devices and smart phones

.

Viral marketing potential ideas

.

Poster, billboard & digital banner designs and initial ideas

.

MAN ALIVE - Package Idea

Today my self and Lauren met to discuss progress and developed ideas of putting it all together.

At the moment we have decided to place the majority of our work in a book, that will look as professional as possible. It will included all the elements of the pitch, characters, location, episode breakdown, mission statements and AMC scheduling etc from me and all of Lauren W's marketing and branding ideas. At the moment Lauren is working on layout and visuals whilst I am writing content. We will be looking to piece it together on a web design layout next Friday ready to send to the publishers in the next two weeks after. Lauren has drafted this layout to give some idea of what it will look like:

My charcter bios and casting will also be placed in a diagram similar to this that Lauren has designed within the book:

We have also been researching how to bind the script and the files we will be putting the case reports in for each character:

All of the above will be placed in a box, which we are still deciding on, something along the lines of a top secret or ballot box, which will hopefully include a gloss finish A3 size poster. We hope these ideas meet Simon's brief, but we will discuss these ideas in our tutorial on Monday.

MAN ALIVE - Scripting Research

Man Alive is a complicated script to write, as American TV series have multiple characters, plot lines, twists and turns. For this series I am exploring the ideas of corruption, auhtority, power, government, technology and punshiment. The pilot episode deals with police corruption in particular and the climactic scene shows an execution and so it was important to research both, below are my findings;

Corrupt acts by police officers:

Police officers have various opportunities to gain personally from their status and authority as law enforcement officers. The Knapp Commission, which investigated corruption in the New York City Police Department in the early 1970s, divided corrupt officers into two types: meat-eaters, who "aggressively misuse their police powers for personal gain," and grass-eaters, who "simply accept the payoffs that the happenstances of police work throw their way."[5]

The sort of corrupt acts that have been committed by police officers have been classified as follows:[6]

• Corruption of authority: police officers receiving free drinks, meals, and other gratuities.

• Kickbacks: receiving payment from referring people to other businesses. This can include, for instance, contractors and tow truck operators.[7]

• Opportunistic theft from arrestees and crime victims or their corpses.
• Shakedowns: accepting bribes for not pursuing a criminal violation.
• Protection of illegal activity: being "on the take", accepting payment from the operators of illegal establishments such as brothels, casinos, or drug dealers to protect them from law enforcement and keep them in operation.
• "Fixing": undermining criminal prosecutions by withholding evidence or failing to appear at judicial hearings, for bribery or as a personal favor.
• Direct criminal activities of law enforcement officers themselves.[8]
• Internal payoffs: prerogatives and perquisites of law enforcement organizations, such as shifts and holidays, being bought and sold.
• The "frameup": the planting or adding to evidence, especially in drug cases.
• Police hazing within law enforcement.

• Ticket fixing: police officers cancelling traffic tickets as a favor to the friends and family of other police officers.

Mental Torture of Prisoners

The Stanford Experiment:

How do prisoners and guards react to one another? “You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy... We're going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we'll have all the power and they'll have none."

A guard would wear Milatary style uniform with mirrored glasses to prevent eye contact.

full booking procedures on the prisoners, which included fingerprinting and taking mug shots. 

they were strip searched and given their new identities.

Prisoners wore uncomfortable ill-fitting smocks and stocking caps, as well as a chain around one ankle. Guards were instructed to call prisoners by their assigned numbers, sewn on their uniforms, instead of by name.

They set up a "privilege cell" in which prisoners who were not involved in the riot were treated with special rewards, such as higher quality meals. The "privileged" inmates chose not to eat the meal in order to stay uniform with their fellow prisoners.

Guards forced the prisoners to repeat their assigned numbers[6] in order to reinforce the idea that this was their new identity. Guards soon used these prisoner counts to harass the prisoners, using physical punishment such as protracted exercise for errors in the prisoner count.

Sanitary conditions declined rapidly, exacerbated by the guards' refusal to allow some prisoners to urinate or defecate anywhere but in a bucket placed in their cell. As punishment, the guards would not let the prisoners empty the sanitation bucket. Mattresses were a valued item in the prison, so the guards would punish prisoners by removing their mattresses, leaving them to sleep on concrete. Some prisoners were forced to be naked as a method of degradation. Several guards became increasingly cruel as the experiment continued; experimenters reported that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded after only 6 days.

The results of the experiment favor situational attribution of behavior rather than dispositional attribution. In other words, it seemed that the situation, rather than their individual personalities, caused the participants' behavior.

Death Penalty in California. 

Executions in California were carried out in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. It was modified for the use of lethal injection, but has been returned to its original designated purpose, with the creation of a new chamber specifically for lethal injection.

As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime[12] or mentally retarded[13] are constitutionally precluded from being executed.

The latest change of method was introduced in January 1993, when lethal injection was offered as a choice for people sentenced to death.

According to CCFAJ's report, the lapse of time from sentence of death to execution constitutes the longest delay of any death penalty state.

As of May 2012 under the current 1978 law:

• 57 inmates have died from natural causes
• 6 inmates have died from other causes
• 20 inmates have committed suicide
• 13 have been executed in California
• 1 inmate (Kelvin Shelby Malone) was executed in Missour

As of 2012, there are 725 offenders (including 19 women) on California's death row.[2][3] Of those, 126 involved torture before murder, 173 killed children, and 44 murdered police officers.[4]

The penal code provides for possible capital punishment in:

• treason against the state of California, defined as levying war against the state, adhering to its enemies, or giving them aid and comfort.[14]
• perjury causing execution of an innocent person[15]

• first-degree murder with special circumstances[16]

• for financial gain (1)
• the defendant had previously been convicted of first or second degree murder (2)
• multiple murders (3)
• committed using explosives (4) ; (6)
• to avoid arrest or aiding in escaping custody (5)
• the victim was an on-duty peace officer; federal law enforcement officer or agent; or firefighter (7) ; (8) ; (9)
• the victim was a witness to a crime and the murder was committed to prevent them from testifying (10)
• the victim was a prosecutor or assistant prosecutor; judge or former judge; elected or appointed official; juror; and the murder was in retaliation for the victim's official duties (11) ; (12) ; (13) ; (20)
• the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity" (14)
• the murderer lay in wait for the victim (15)
• the victim was intentionally killed because of their race, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation. (a hate crime) (16)
• the murder was committed during the committing of a robbery; kidnapping; rape; sodomy; performance of a lewd or lascivious act upon the person of a child under the age of 14 years; oral copulation; burglary; arson; train wrecking; mayhem; rape by instrument; carjacking; torture; poisoning (17)
• the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture (18)
• poisoning (19)
• the murder was committed by discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle (21)
• the defendant is an active member of a criminal street gang and was to further the activities of the gang (22)

• train wrecking which leads to a person's death.[17]

[edit]

Four methods have been used historically for executions. Until slightly before California was admitted into the Union, executions were carried by firing squad. Upon admission, the state adopted hanging as the method of choice.

Lethal Injection:

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide. It kills the person by first putting the person to sleep, and then stopping the breathing and heart in that order.

Lethal injection gained popularity in the late twentieth century as a form of execution intended to supplant other methods, notably electrocution, hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, and beheading, that were considered to be more painful. It is now the most common form of execution in the United States of America.