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10 September 2022

Posted by Holly Spillar and Rohan Gotobed

Holiday Homes and Hollywood Pitches

HOLIDAY HOMES 10/09/22 - Junior Writers 7-10


This week our Junior Writers were tasked with making Holiday home flyers and slogans. However these were not any ordinary holiday homes, these were FANTASY HOLIDAY HOMES. We had a fairy treehouse with a secret entrance, tiny teapots with chocolate swimming pools, dragon lairs that come with a robot best friend, igloos that had a summer holiday inside and lots of fantastical creatures coming to stay.


Before making their flyers the writers had to create lists of all the features included in their holiday homes and then a word bank of interesting ways to describe them, that might make someone want to stay.


Once the flyers had been made and we had names and slogans for the holiday homes the writers had to swap and write each other bad reviews left by VERY naughty complaining creatures.


The naughty creatures complained that the igloo was too warm, that the dragon wasn’t friendly and that the tiny teapot was too tiny (and didn’t have enough snacks inside!).


Here is some of the creative work from this week


The Icy Igloo by Bay




The Tree Tribe by Lucy (who joined the group this week)


The Dragon’s Lair by Flo


The Wizard’s Treehouse by Isabelle 



Instead of sharing their written work from this week on the blog the writers decided they wanted to show you some of the projects they’ve been working on at home! We are very proud of our new junior writers and loved hearing their stories and poems at the end of the session.


 

An excerpt from Isabelle’s hilarious reimaging of Cinderella! - we can’t wait to read more

Some poems Bay entered into a competition - he did very well 

The first page of Freya’s adventure story - I love the spider!

An introduction to Flo’s fantasy characters. - great descriptions! 



Young Writer’s 11-15


Our second week of the term and it was wonderful to see more new faces in Function Room 2. Naturally, we spoke at length about the death of the Queen and reflected on our personal and political feelings towards this obviously important and historical event. 


However, our first exercise was something a little bit different. The Young Writers had to respond to the following provocation without being scientifically accurate – What is the Moon? We heard some brilliantly inventive ideas, from it being ‘the remnants of an explosion in a cheese factory’ to ‘the pearl in a galactic necklace.’ 


As promised last week, this session marked the return of Holly Wood (our very own Holly in sunglasses, scarf, and American accent). She wanted to hear the Young Writers pitch their movie ideas, as decided by our Wheel of Fortune. Sorted into groups, the writers were allocated two characters, a location, and a genre. This resulted in some brilliant concepts:


A Spider and a Slug on a Shipwreck (Fantasy) – about two characters who are thrown together, spend years overcoming their differences only to fall in love and be turned into humans by a witch.


An Elf and a Backing Singer on a Little Boat (Disney Movie) – about a backing singer who asks an elf to cast a spell and help her achieve her dreams, only to discover the elf is evil.


An Explorer and a Wizard’s Apprentice underground (Adventure) – an explorer discovers the apprentice buried beneath the earth, only to let loose some catastrophic curses. 


A Pilot and a Backing Singer underwater (Cartoon) – a pilot kidnaps a singer and they fall into an underwater vampire kingdom. 


After presenting their ideas to Holly and Rohan, the Young Writers had to redraft based on our heavy-handed producer notes (Where’s the Love Story? Make it a Horror Movie! We need a memorable villain!) By the end of the session, we had some brilliant outlines for six different movies. Netflix, you know where to find us! 


Next week we’ll be looking at character through a fantastical lens! 


Recommendations from the Room: Anything by Agatha Christie (Books) and The Crown (TV)



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