Exercise 3: Creating a Movie Script

1) Give a brief description of your movie scripts in both exercises. Evaluate whether or not they are creative or marketable.

30 second movie script

Firefighter’s reality

Fire Suppressor is a movie to describe the real life of firefighter. It spotlights how a junior firefighter facing the unfamiliar and unexpected works in their daily life. For instance, what he feels about the first bloody and horrible traffic accidents at the scene.  Using the tough response time as an example, no matter what they do at the moment like in the toilet or having a bath, they should attend the fire appliance within a minute of time. Moreover, the story also involves some embarrassing issues like homosexual affair to make it funny. Through the story, we not only understand the difficulties in their daily life and also see the development of a mature and professional firefighter is. The target audience is for all age except the children because of many bloody scenes.  It would raise a question ‘what the important of thing in our life is – dream’.

Nature of movie : marketable

1 minute movie script

Beauty’s love story

To give a name ‘Beauty’s love story’ is to describe a lonely woman of middle age, attending the degree course and meeting her dream lover in the classroom.  So as to draw her target’s attention, she tries to change her appearance, expression technique and attitude toward the man. On the contrary, the reaction of the target is also changing a lot from the appreciation towards her as a hard working student to become embarrassment because the target is a smart and professional of the course. Through the story, the audience would understand the most common phenomenon in modern city like Hong Kong girls about expecting love feeling as when they are a successful and rich woman without true love. The target is for all age except children because of lots of rude and sexy words. The targeted period is for next year the Valentine’s day.

Nature of movie : creative

2) & 3) Describe the situations, statements, and comments that WERE/ WERE NOT helpful in developing your movie script and explain how they inhibited you from arriving at a successful script.

Situation A1

Ø with supervisor to instruct the next direction

Ø supervisor points out negative aspects for good ideas

Ø no laughing is allowed

Ø no talking is allowed without the permission from the supervisor

Bad side D

a)     Building trust is a gradual process which takes several years long and real trust occur involve a long term relationship and every partner are willing to trust others;

b)     The challenge of building trust is that no human is 100% trustworthy; because some of them may be individualism and they believe that their own thought are the best;

c)     Group conflict can be formed from a simple disagreement and when people express differing and incompatible ideas;

d)     The group with leader may overestimate his power and and become close minded, they may not found out the best solution;

e)     The group may have experience pressure to voice their idea if their idea is banned by the leader previously, the group will lose confidence;

f)      Team members were unable to work together cooperatively if selfish interests which were able to infiltrate the team cohesion

g)     Leader has high power over the group to restrict their freedom, e.g. no laughing and talking, etc; it serious damages their working mood;

Good side C

a)     Leader has aware of the internal conflicts and external threatens, leader may focus on the needs of the group;

b)     Leader has the power to control, he/she may focus on individual interests and compromise when disagree among groupthinking;

c)     Leader usually has more experience, abilities, skills and insights than the followers, the leader play an important role to share his/her skills

d)     Leader must have established clear expectations so there is no ambiguity or question of what is expected of the team;

Situation A2

Ø everyone has the freedom to communicate with each other

Ø safe to offer idea

In situation A2, everyone

« first list out the movie type he/she would like to present;

« free to explain the reason and give examples;

« each other gives their comments towards it;

« whole team evaluate the best ideas with combination of each valuable ideas.

Bad side D

a) Time consuming, time is wasted by members on one single idea

b) In case internal conflicts happen between members, there will be no control

c) No leader in the team, no key person to take the responsibility for the outcome

Good side C

a) Through the idea sharing, we open each other’s mind and drive everyone to think further to create more imaginative and unexpected ideas. It helps exploit the full creative potential of the team member.

b) Since everyone is free to offer ideas, it comes up with many different kinds of ideas. Each individual has different personality, interests, age and background. The ideas are in wide range (e.g. romance, comedy, horror, adventure, tale, cartoon etc)

c) No criticism whatsoever. The ideas are more creative since all ideas are welcomed even if they are unrealistic.

d) Team members trust the talent of each other. Team members confident in their own capabilities, their trust in others’ capabilities play important roles to motivate at a higher level. We encourage everyone to express his/her own idea and trust everyone’s idea is unique and valuable. A productive relationship is built.

The final script is made by gathering all ideas from everyone.

Collaborative product!!

4) Analyze and explain how the two different conditions inhibited or facilitated your movie creation process. What worked well? What could have been improved?

As mentioned before, in situation 1, the team members lose confidence which affect the working spirit and inhibited the creation process as no one is free to speak out. This environment can be improved by giving a clear direction to the members and letting them know the whole team is sharing the common goal to achieve.

We worked better in situation 2 because we built up a trust when working together.  In the team, each member has contributed their personal talents and hard working toward the project.  For example, one of us is a good story teller, with his good imaginative idea and ad hoc presentation skill which bring the attraction to the audience.  Some of us are good at giving a right direction and support to others, while some are good at making analysis and sharing experiences.  Our team members are in equal status and same vision which facilitated us to generate out the creative idea to our movie.

However, much time is needed on brainstorming, to share, analysis and discuss everyone’s idea. The final decision could not be made with a limit of time. I think this situation can be solved if members can have a self control on the time, better preparation before discussion or perhaps concern more about other members to prevent domination in the discussion process.

5) Make use of all five of the articles from the weeks covering Trust and Creativity in this writing exercise. BOLD the sentences that indicate your mastery, understanding, and application of your readings. 

For Exercise 1 – Supervisor directs others

Since this exercise required the group member must check with the supervisor when they have an idea and the supervisor had to approve it, so we have had applied the concept of Capitalize on Network Connections - Negotiators who do not know each other may attempt to build a more trusting relationship by trying to find a common mode in their social networks. That means, we engage in enough discussion through the Supervisor who we both know and trust that he helped move decisions along quickly.

First, we were Formulating a Vision that Encouraged the Group member to consider the questions: The Supervisor asked the group member that how might the audience would remember our presentation. End up we utilized the drama to present our idea instead of story.

Second, we used a variety of approaches to capture ideas. Some people express themselves better in nonverbal ways. Use pictures, charts, diagrams, and color-coded lists to relay participants' ideas. As we could not talk to each other, we had through the Supervisor to communicate with other teammates by using memo, picture and gesture, etc.

With this form of exercise, to avoid the broken trust, we have had applied some steps such as asked for clarifying information, we always to test the Supervisor’s understanding, this practice was helpful if one party could truly empathize with the other’s perspective.

However, Miscommunication is more likely when parties are not in regular contact, especially when we have little face-to-face contact because we didn’t allow talking with others.

The Supervisor worked hard to keep people motivated. In fact, our team was performing at a high level under his supervision. 

For Exercise 2 – All Group Members participation

To Form a Partnership - when our partnership begins to take shape, we have made sure that we were the appropriate participants to the collaborating table, and that we could work effectively once we got there. First, we put together a team and didn’t have a lot of creativity the movie script experience. Second, based on Trust and ensure a broad-based, inclusive partnership - make sure your partners reflect diverse perspectives, experiences, cultures, and levels of authority. As we come from different industries, we have different experiences and background.

Besides, we should create Trust and a Shared Vision. In order to shape a group of diverse individuals into a focused, trusting, effective partnership, we have had to find common ground and develop a unified vision for success.  a) Find common ground encourage the partners to exchange specific ideas, perceptions, and concerns.; b) Develop a shared vision that we wanted the outcome was a comedy it left a deep impression of the movie script. 

Furthermore, we Share the spotlight; seek input from all partners. “In a truly collaborative effort, partners relate to each other on a non-hierarchical basis, regardless of the organizational structure (Jehl & Kirst, 1992).” On this basis, we were willing to share our favorite subjects such as romance, comedy, horror, adventure, tale, cartoon, even personal experience, etc. However, we did not want to be ordinary, having received the consent of other team members and went to interpretations of Helen’s love story.

Our Group members were provided many ideas, and vigorously promoted their own views. However, our principle was “Getting to Yes”, and we voted the best one of the story. As a result, we could achieve the “Negotiations among Diverse Individuals to Arrive at Win Win Outcomes”.

Through this exercise, we understand that Creativity Can Be Learned. Learning Among Partners - as collaborators initially come together, they need to spend a considerable amount of time learning about each other. Thus, to create learning opportunities for group member, for example, when one of our group members put forward an idea, other members have their thinking to create and refine the construction of meaning.

References:

E. Wertheim, Northeastern University, Negotiations and Resolving Conflicts: An overview

Leigh L. Thompson, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, 4^th Ed

Ed Catmull, September 2008, How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity, Harvard Business Review

Darrell K. Rigby, Kara Gruver and James Allen, June 2009, Innovation in Turbulent Times, Harvard Business Review

Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaie, October 2008, Creativity and the Role of the Leader, Harvard Business Review

James K. Sebenius, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, 4th Edition, Leigh L. Thompson,

The Hidden Challenge of Cross-Border Negotiations. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/css/ppt/chap1.htm.