Group 12 - Future of Your TV

Monday, November 15, 2010

CREATIVE PROCESS for "America's Got Talent: Cartoon Characters"

Our process of creating a hit show was not an easy one. It involved a brainstorming session with the group to narrow down the best ideas to create a great hit remix. One of the first thoughts we had was Biggest Loser meets televisions favorite fat cartoon characters. However, the group quickly realized that there were not any fat woman cartoon characters. This was essential if we were going to imitate the real show. Then the idea of Biggest Losers meets two of televisions favorite families, the Griffins from Family Guy and the Simpsons from The Simpsons came to the groups mind. However, that idea was shut down due to lack of available content. The content we needed was the families, the Griffins and the Simpsons, working out or doing any physical activities. This was simply unavailable on YouTube or any other related video sites. We then came up with America’s Got Talent and cartoon characters as our winning idea. In that same group meeting, the task of finding character performances was assigned. A few days after we volunteers were asked to do the following for part one of the pitch: a preliminary story board, a pitch for the series, a power point. We then decided that the editing should be done in pairs, 10 group member 5 pairs. Each pair would receive a flash drive and have one week to add to the content that the previous group had worked on.

After receiving constructive criticism from the class and Dr. Postigo, we decided to throw in a drama element to our show. Our drama element would consist of Brian Griffin from Family Guy and a performer on America’s Got Talent, would have an affair with Sharon Osbourne, one of the judges. After we figured out what we were doing, we then decided to look up videos on YouTube and figure out which ones would work best for our project. We looked up videos with Spongebob and South Park along with Family Guy. It was not an easy process finding videos to put in the final piece. Another challenge was trying to find cartoon charters performing on stage. We thought if the characters were on stage, it would look more cohesive with America’s Got Talent and their pre-existing set. Each team download the video from You Tube or other related video sites. For some teams, it took longer to figure it out what they wanted to add to the previous content than other teams, who already had an idea in mind. After each team had downloaded the video they wanted to work on, it was editing time. The editing process is very difficult to understand unless you have done it before and you know what you are doing. For many of the groups, it took hours to edit only 30 seconds of the pitch. Additionally different pairs used different editing tools such as Camtasia or imovie. Despite all the challenges, group 12 came up with a cohesive and interesting variety of cartoon charters and talent.

Slide Show/Story Board for Pilot Episode

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Final Video

Sunday, November 14, 2010

SERIES AND PLOT IDEA for “AMERICA’S Got Talent: Cartoon Characters”

America’s Got talent is an American reality television series that features singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, and other performers of all ages. To come up with the idea for our series, we used the fact that among its significant features, it gives an opportunity to talented amateurs as well as unknown performers with the results decided by the audience. To give our series a different twist, we decided to inject cartoon characters as performers to find out which one is the most talented performer on television.

Our idea for the series involved having cartoon characters performing different acts so we could show more variety in the show. The cartoon characters will face Sharon, Piers, and Howie (the shows judges) to prove there is more to them than bright colors and voice-overs! At the end of show, the best performer of the day is voted for by the audience as a way of encouraging audience participation.

Our TV pilot mashes-up the hit show “America’s Got Talent” and other popular cartoon series. It incorporates the judges’ reaction to performances by the cartoon characters. We include drama, suspense and variety that will get the audience asking to see more. We will be having performances by, Brian Griffin from Family Guy, the South Park cast, and Gabola the Magician as “Paul Grasso”. While he may be a canine, Brian will sing his heart out and show us his skills on the keyboard. But is he smooth enough to win over Sharon? We generate drama in this scene by having Ozzy (Sharon’s husband) suspicious of Brian’s friendship with Sharon. We have the cast of South Park form a band, “Fingerbang “ and do a musical performance that will get crowd really excited. Will Piers find this act exciting or revolting and keep his hand away from the dreaded X? During this performance, we create suspense by showing “Fingerbang” almost receiving three X’s (thereby eliminating them before they finish their song) even though the crowd is in love with them. Spongebob Squarepants performs “Sweet Victory” with the Bikini Bottom marching band. His performance will wow America to get the buzz going about a singing sponge. Gabola the magician as “Paul Grasso” performs a magic act that Sharon and Howie give a thumps up to. On the other hand Piers wants none of this act and has some unkind words for his performance. The decision is left to America to either vote for him or not. The judges deliberations play a big part in who will be voted out by adding drama to the series and also by the swaying audience decision on particular acts. America will then have to decide which of their favorite cartoon characters is the most talented this season. So Tune in and judge for yourself!