Professional Pre-Production: Character Profiles

Throughout this process I have been developing my characters for Pleasure Park. Now that I have finalised them, I have created more detailed character profiles. By creating these profiles, others can better understand the characters and therefore better understand the storylines across the series.

CHARACTER PROFILES

Frank ‘Mr Pleasure’ Diamond

Played By: John Challis

Description: Frank is a businessman who owns and runs the Pleasure Park Amusement Park. He’s in his 60s and has a Magnum P.I. style moustache. He slicks his hair back. He will do anything to keep the park open.

Age: 60s

Height: Above Average

Build: Above average

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Kent

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Manager of Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: Always uses the phrase ‘We’ll Pleasure You’, without realising that it sounds rude. His weakness is money, you offer him money to do something, and 9 times out of 10, he’ll do it.

Costume Design: Cheap suits

Debbie ‘Mrs Pleasure’ Diamond

Played By: Josie Kidd

Description: Debbie is Frank’s wife. They’ve been married for 15 years, and they met during the early days of Pleasure Park when they were both Ride Operators. Debbie is the head of Customer Services at the park. She has a perm. She always tries her best to support Frank in every decision he makes in an attempt to keep the park open.

Age: 60s

Height: Average

Build: Average

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Head of Customer Service at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: Debbie always has a smile on her face, even during the worst situations.

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform, except her t-shirt says happy to help on the back, with a big smiley face.

Ned Parker

Played By: Simon Bird

Description: Ned is the Health and Safety Manager at Pleasure Park. He irritates everyone because he is so uptight about everything H&S. He also knows everything there is to know about theme parks, and he’s not afraid to show it. He wears glasses and has his hair combed over to the side.

Age: 30s

Height: Average

Build: Average

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Health and Safety Manager at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: Sweats a lot when he gets nervous, especially on his upper lip.

Costume Design: A white shirt, with various waistcoats and tie combinations.

Jimmy (Jim/James) Reynolds

Played By: Clive Rowe

Description: Jimmy is the wisest Ride Operator at Pleasure Park. He thinks he knows better than Frank and wants to take over as manager. He’s known Frank for a very long time, as they both worked as Ride Operators in what Jimmy refers to as ‘the good old days’. Jimmy has a thin layer of dark hair.

Age: Mid 50s

Height: Above average

Build: Above average

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: London

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Ride Operator at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: He calls everyone buddy, because he’s bad with names.

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform

Daniel Waterhouse

Played By: Tom Rosenthal

Description: Daniel new to Pleasure Park. This is his first season as a Ride Operator. He has a lot to learn. He’s a bit socially awkward. He’s a ride operator at Pleasure Park. He has a crush on Emily.

Age: Late 20s

Height: Above average

Build: Slim

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: London

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Ride Operator at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: As a socially awkward person, he always says the wrong thing when he’s in an awkward situation, which only makes the situation worse.

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform

Emily Roberts

Played By: Nikki Runeckles

Description: Emily doesn’t take crap from anyone. Most of the guys have a crush on her, including newbie Daniel, but none of them ever try to get to know her. She has a great sense of humour, and a bit of a dirty mind at times. She is a Ride Operator at Pleasure Park.

Age: Mid 20s

Height: Average

Build: Slim

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Essex

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Ride Operator at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: She has a dirty mind. She likes to take others comments out of context to make them sound rude.

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform

Katie Smith

Played By: Jessica Knappett

Description: Katie likes the colour black. Black hair, black lipstick, black clothes, she’s got it all. Like Emily, she doesn’t take crap from anyone. She and Emily are good friends. She is a Ride Operator at Pleasure Park.

Age: Late 20s

Height: Above average

Build: Slim

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Ride Operator at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: She’s great at dishing out backhanded compliments.

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform, with her own dark touches (e.g. a black jacket instead of the red one, which she is always told off for wearing)

Jake Evans

Played By: Ryan Sampson

Description: Jake is a bit of a bully. He’s not nice to everyone because he thinks it’s funny. He loves to pick on a newbie, so Daniel quickly becomes the victim. He’s a Ride Operator at Pleasure Park. He’s uniform is too small for him, so it’s always really tight, which he likes because it shows off his muscles.

Age: Mid 20s

Height: Average

Build: Average

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Ride Operator at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: He has an odd sneeze which people take the mick out of. He sees it as his only weakness.

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform

Harry Clarke

Played By: Jonathan Sayer

Description: Harry isn’t the most popular person. He’s a bit of a weird guy, and it puts people off. He likes comic books and cosplay. Him and newbie Daniel become good friends right away because Daniel finds him easy to talk too. He’s a Ride Operator at Pleasure Park.

Age: Early 20s

Height: Average

Build: Slim

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Ride Operator at Pleasure Park Amusement Park

Character Traits: He often impersonates characters from geeky films and video games (e.g. Yoda)

Costume Design: Pleasure Park uniform

‘Reggie’

Played By: Marek Larwood

Description: Nobody knows a lot about creepy Reggie. He visits the park almost every day to see all the staff. He especially likes talking to Katie, which she doesn’t like. He’s desperate to stop his favourite place from being closed down.

Age: late 30s, early 40s

Height: Average

Build: Above average

Nationality: British

Place of Birth: Lincolnshire

Current Home: Fairwood, Lincolnshire

Occupation: Unemployed

Character Traits: He has a creepy laugh.

Costume Design: The same dark joggers, t-shirt, and jacket every single day.

Alfie & Zoe

Played By: Alfie Deyes & Zoe Sugg (YouTube celebrities playing themselves)

Description: Alfie & Zoe are ‘professional’ YouTube stars who are brought in by Frank to produce a brand-new advert for the park, in the hopes that it will go viral online. They make staff members complete viral challenges to create the advert.

Age: 24 & 27

Height: Both average

Build: Both slim

Nationality: Both British

Place of Birth: London & Wiltshire

Current Home: Both Brighton

Occupation: YouTubers

Character Traits: They add the word hashtag to other random words all the time whilst speaking. (e.g. that would be so #cool)

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Professional Pre-Production: Branding & Marketing Version 5

As Pleasure Park has been developing, there has been one issue that has remained: the branding looks too animated. To rectify this I have rebranding the show to create version 5 of the branding & marketing mock ups.

BRANDING & MARKETING VERSION 5

These are the problems I identified with the previous versions, which I feel contribute to it looking animated:

- The blue sky doesn't look real as it is just on plain colour.

- The ground doesn't look real, it should be a texture.

- The rollercoaster needs to be a different colour so it looks more like a silhouette.

- The clouds used on the poster look too cartoony, they need to be replaced with a realistic textured cloud.

- Although the folded corner adds to the warped poster effect, it still doesn't work in the grand scheme of things.

I still want the logo to look like it is in the sky above the amusement park, but I want it too look more realistic.

I started the process of creating a new title card with the background, which is still a colour, but a gradient like the real sky. It starts quite green/yellow, and ends quite blue. This combination of the two colours looks like the sky when the sun is setting. This gradient, with all the additional elements in the next stages, also looks more realistic than the original sky colour in the previous versions.

Next I added the silhouettes of two amusement park rides, a coaster, and a ferris wheel. I did this so it is clear we are in the sky above the amusement park. They are silhouettes because I plan to add a sun that is shining at what would be the camera, so this was cause the rides to look dark and in silhouette.

After this I added a layer of clouds, both in front of and behind the rides. These clouds are more realistic than the ones in previous versions. I also made the clouds quite grey, to add to the dark and run down look the branding needs to have. It gives the idea that the park is surrounded by grey clouds. As well as this, I added a sun setting in the corner of the screen.

I then added the logo of the show, which has not changed, to the centre of the image. I placed a slight layer of clouds over it at the bottom of the screen to give the image a slight 3D effect, as though the logo is hiding in the clouds above the park.

Finally, I added an inner shadow, grunge texture, and a faded overlay. This, when combined, made the image look old and run down, like the fiction amusement park the show is about.

This is the final version:

I am very happy with the new branding. I feel it looks more real than the previous versions which looked too animated. I also feel this new branding fits the show better than any previous versions. When you look at this version, you don't instantly assume the show is an animation/cartoon.

Using all of the elements of the new branding, I have also created new promotional material: poster, billboard, bus poster, etc...

All of the new promotional material follows the same layouts as the previous material, but with the new elements from the new branding.

Poster

Billboard

Bus Poster

Bus Stop Poster

Small Billboard

I feel all of the new branding & promotional material fits the themes and style of the show a lot better than any previous versions. This will now be the final version.

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Professional Pre-Production: Costume Design

As I am focusing on the visual side of the pre-production process, costume design is something I need to consider.

COSTUME DESIGN

My characters work in an amusement park, so pretty much 100% of the time they will be in their work uniform. Because of this I have only focused on coming up with a design for their uniforms, and no other costumes, as they will be in their uniforms throughout the whole series.

To help fuel my own ideas for costume design I looked at the work uniforms of two major UK theme parks: Alton Towers & Chessington WOA.

Their work uniforms look like this:

Alton Towers

Chessington WOA

It would appear that as the two theme parks are owned by the same company, they wear similar uniforms. Their uniform consists of black trousers and shoes, mixed with a polo t-shirt, and a zipped fleece. The polo and fleece are the colours of the park's logos. As well as this information, I also known from working in an amusement park myself, that a t-shirt/fleece combination is a common uniform during the summer period at a theme park.

Using this research I have decided that my characters will wear red polo t-shirts, which occasionally will be combined with a red fleece/jacket/hoodie. The red colour fits with the colour scheme of Pleasure Park's logo. As well as this, the characters will wear a blue name badge which has the logo on it.

I used Photoshop to mock up these images of what the costume design will look like:

POLO T-SHIRTS

FLEECE/JACKET/HOODIES

I feel this costume design, along with the name badges, fits with the show, the characters, and the uniforms of other major theme parks. If for any reason a character needs to be in a scene without their uniform, their costume design will be based on their characters personality.

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Professional Pre-Production: Branding/Marketing Version 3 & 4

During my tutorials its was mentioned that my branding & marketing mockups still looked too animated. I took this feedback on board to work on version 3.

BRANDING & MARKETING VERSION 3

To develop the branding:
- I changed the earth in the logo from the animated one to a more realistic looking one.
- I added a pattern texture to the rollercoaster, and to the text in the logo, again to make it look more real, and less animated.
- I added a metal texture to the space behind the text in the logo to make it look more like a sign, as the logo is the sign outside the amusement park.
- I added a crinkled paper texture to the background to add to the idea that the title card is a old poster for the park that is peeling off of a wall.

After making these changes, this is what the new graphics looked like:

Title Card

Poster

Billboard

Bus Poster

After these developments, something still wasn't right, so I worked on a 4th version.

BRANDING & MARKETING VERSION 4

To develop the branding:
- Added a metal texture to the entire image to make it look at real as possible, and therefore not as animated.

After making these changes, this is what version 4 of the graphics looked like:

Title Card

Poster

Billboard

Bus Poster

I like version 4, and I feel it looks less animated than the original. I will continue to develop the branding and marketing as this project moves forward.

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Professional Pre-Production: Style (Visual/Editing)

One part of my role on this project is working out what kind of style Pleasure Park will have, in terms of visuals and editing. This will be an important part of the process, as it will help with the decisions on every other visual element of the show.

STYLE: VISUALS

When referring to visual style, you are not referring to what you shoot, but instead how you shoot it, and that's what makes it your style. Pleasure Park will attempt to have it's own unique style, but one that still follows the conventions of the genre it exists in.

There are a few different elements of Pleasure Park's style that must be explained:

The first element of it's style are the themes it represents through the lens. These themes are dark humour, light humour, urban/rundown themes, and failure. These themes will be represent not only by the dialogue and characters, but also by the visuals in each episode.

The second element is framing. Pleasure Park will follow the example of most other television programmes by using a range of frame sizes to tell the story. These can include wide shots, mid shots, and close ups. These types of shots also fit in with the styles of my Director and DOP, and assumption I can make based on their previous work.

The next element is the types of angles or shot types that might be used. Pleasure Park will use a range of establishing shots before each scene, and these shots will mostly be from a high angle above the park to show it's full scale, and how empty it is most of the time. These establishing shots will also help the viewers understand the location and the geography of each scene. This is also a common technique used in Benidorm on ITV, which was directed by my chosen director. As well as this, other common shots like high/low angles, shots with a shallow depth of field, shots with movement like jib shots, or dolly shots, maybe also be used as part of the shows style when applicable.

example of an establishing shot in Benidorm (ITV)

The final element of style is lighting. Pleasure Park will almost entirely be designed to look as natural as possible, as to add to the realism of the location, characters, and storylines. This will be achieved by using natural light, and a blend of daylight balanced lights which build up the light in a scene when needed. As well as this, the lights on the rides will play an important part in every exterior scene, as in real amusement parks, they tend to be a big source of light across and entire park.

Overall, although Pleasure Park is not a mockumentary, it will still follows some of the same conventions as that genre, in terms of shot composition and style. I would describe the style as distant and handheld, with the occasional tripod, jib, and dolly shots thrown in when needed, as well as even some steadicam shots for longer scenes within the park. My reason for choosing to make the cameras distant at times, is because I want to the audience to feel like they are a customer in the park witnessing these weird and wonderful events take place.

STYLE: EDITING

Pleasure Park will be edited mainly by my chosen editor Nick Ames. The editing style of Pleasure Park has been chosen based on his experience and style, and on the style that best fits the themes and style that the show and aims to represent.

There are a few different elements of Pleasure Park's editing style that must be explained:

The first element is the types of editing techniques that will be used. Pleasure Park will used three different types, continuity editing, sequencing and cutaways (which sometimes may be built up using a sequence). Continuity editing will be used to build up every scene in an episode; cutting the shots together in order to create a scene that flows and make sense. Sequences will be used to blend different establishing shots between scenes (see Benidorm example). And finally, cutaways will be used to sometimes show a past scene that a character may refer too (see Family Guy example), which is different to how cutaways are normally used, when the cutaway is occurring at the same time. These are cutaways to past events, like flashbacks.

Establishing shot sequences in Benidorm. 

Taken from an episode directed by David Sant, and edited by Nick Ames.

Cutaway example from Family Guy

The next element is the types of cuts used. After carrying out some research I found that a common type of cut used in television is called a J cut, which is when the audio from the next scene begins to play on screen before the it is actually cut to visually. Another extremely common type of cut is the hard cut, which is used all the time, and is just the technique of cutting back and forth between two or more shots. And the final common type of cut is to cut on action, which can help to smooth out a cut. All three of these cutting types will be used in Pleasure Park.

And the final element is colour grading. Pleasure Park will attempt to look as natural as possible, and so the only colour grading carried out will use colours already in the scene and just enhance them. This will be in an attempt to not make the show look to filmic or dramatic, and instead keep the natural look, that will also be achieved through lighting techniques.

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