Hey everyone,
Week 3 of The Apprentice, let's get straight into the task!
At the beginning of the episode, the candidates only had 30 minutes to get ready before their taxis would take them to Regents Street Cinema for their next task. There was a cartoon video which was played to them all, with characters including Kat from Eastenders and stars from Strictly Come Dancing, as well as Baroness Karren Brady herself. They had to create a pre school cartoon which had an original storyline. On the 'Boys team' was Sohail, Bradley, Mark, Avi - along with Dani, Shazia and Marnie. The 'Girls team' was Rochelle, Victoria, Megan, Denisha - with Simba, Gregory, Reece and Joe! Before starting the task, each team came up with a team name. For the boys, they went with 'Infinity' and for the girls, Rochelle suggested 'Excelcia' but they went with Joe's idea of 'Apex'. For Team Infinity, Sohail and Avi both put themselves forward as project manager, with Sohail explaining that he has a martial arts background and works with young people, with Avi saying that his Dad owns a nursery and he worked there part time. With a vote signalled by Bradley, Avi became the project manager. For Team Apex, Reece said that although it wasn't his industry, he would be happy putting himself forward as the project manager.
Team Infinity began discussing their ideas for the storyline concept, with both Dani and Marnie presenting their ideas. Dani said she would go for a giraffe who was worried about going to school and looking different, with Marnie suggesting that they could have a camel having the hump, who meets people along the way. Dani questioned whether the camel idea would work as it would suggest that young people can get the hump, and get what they want, which isn't a very inclusive story for young readers. Dani became the sub team leader along with Bradley and Mark, and they began discussing the storyline with the writer. For Team Apex led by reece, Rochelle suggested that the characrers should include a dark family or a disabled user, having at least two characters. Denisha became the sub team leader along with Simba, Megan and Victoria, and they went off to create the characters. Denisha came up with the names of Femi and Fay, but when they had created their characters, they noticed that they forgot to include hands and feet!
Dani, Mark and Bradley began storywriting for the cartoon, with Dani taking a lead on the words. Mark pointed out several words that would be a bit too complicated for young readers, including the words 'embark' and 'approach'. When it came to character creation, Shazia decided that they should go for an inclusive name, such as a name from Indian culture and went with 'Yogita', with some of the others doubting the name due to the three syllables with Avi liking the name. Marnie took the lead on the giraffe animation and Shazia was not impressed by the final result. For Team Apex, Joe questioned whether the initial storyline idea was fun with Reece and Rochelle bonding over their school idea of using the phrase 'it's cool to be kind'. It was Joe and Rochelle who were the voices behind the characters with Reece asking if Joe could use a higher pitch for the female character. Reece also explained to the character team that they wanted to have a clapping game and whether this would fit with the characters that they had, and Denisha was unable to decided where she wanted to place her characters in the scene so Victoria jumped in with an idea before they ran out of time. After the team watched the advert, Reece said that although the characters have no hands they still need to sell the story, and Victoria explained that during the name creations, Denisha was complaining about the name suggestion Victoria suggested, although it was more inclusive than 'Fay'. Megan said that she also hoped that two years olds would understand the story.
During the feedback from the kids and their parents, Team Infinity and the giraffe idea had comments such as the words being too fast, an easier name needed for the character and a shorter story altogether. Shazia asked if she was able to be on the pitching team as she created the character, with Dani explaining that she same up with the story and Shazia only decided on the name of the giraffa, so Dani was involved in the pitching of the story. Avi introduced their group and the story, before going onto another point where Marnie stopped him and said 'play the video, we don't want to leave them in suspense, probably saving him from speaking too much! Sohail said that they had all had 'decades in the industry' before correcting himself adding that he meant collectively, with Dani stating to the rest of her team that the name was definitely the weakest part of the story. For Team Apex, the feedback they received was that it was nice to see two different characters coming together, but it felt patrionising by having a girl in a wheelchair unable to use a slide, with the other character joining her, and they also noticed the characters didn't have any shoes. Victoria added that the overall story was quite strong, but it was Simba who replaced Gregory for the pitching of the idea. The professionals commented on the story being exclusive rather than inclusive, with Rochelle saying that two-four year old wouldn't understand the story as they were quite young. They added that the characters having no hands or feet look like they are slapping eachother.
In the boardroom, Avi said that he used Marnie to his advantage with the character creation as that was her strong point, with Lord Sugar agreeing with Baroness Brady and Tim, that as the project manager, he should be delegating tasks but also doing things as well as letting someone else take the lead. Lord Sugar compared Mark's voice to sounding like Ray Winston, and he asked whether there was anything Dani didn't contribute to on the task, adding that the name of the giraffe was not her idea, but Shazia's. Team Apex were questioned when Joe was asked about what he thought about the story, to which he replied that it's not that he didn't like the story, it's whether they would understand the storyline. Denisha and Victoria briefly spoke about how they were disagreeing over the name of the characters with Denisha saying that she explained the problem, but Victoria adding that it seemed like it was resolved in the meeting they had before the pitch. Rochelle made a dig at the character team and said that if they would have added arms and legs to the characters then they could have had a chance to win, with Denisha asking about the characters not being able to clap...which was again, the character's team's fault. Simba said that it felt like Gregory added the least input to the task, even with all the chaos around them.
Team Infinity won the challenge, with all the experts saying it was the best, with their treat being at the Ball Pit Cocktail Bar in East London. Lord Sugar explained to Team Apex that their story was not fun, not engagng and seemed more like an infomercial than a story. After a brief discussion with Lord Sugar, and Reece asking people not to speak over eachother, he brought Gregory and Denisa back into the boardroom. Although Denisha didn't manage her sub team in the best way possible, and forgot to add arms and legs to her characters, it was Gregory who was fired due to him taking a seat back in a challenge he knew nothing about. For the next challenge, Lord Sugar announced that they would be going to Brighton and Hove to find 9 items for the cheapest price possible, and that Simba, Rochelle and Joe would be moving from Apex to Infinity, and Mark, Marnie and Sohail would be moving from Infinity to Apex.
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