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Saturday 14 February 2015

'Very Strange Things' - Series Pitch dry run (14/2/2015)

So on Wednesday, as part of a class exercise on my BA Film course, we were tasked with doing 5 minutes pitches. Originally, I was due to pitch a short script I had been working on, but since there was no restriction on the subject of the pitch, I decided to conquer some of my anxieties and do a practice pitch for the first season of Very Strange Things. Armed with only a few basic notes, I set to work before my classmates. I won´t regurgitate much, since most of the main information is available in past posts, so instead, I will outline how I went about my pitch:

  1. Quick hello and introduction to the audience, as one must. The title, premise and style.
  2. A lengthy discussion on the basic outline of the show and its characters. This covered the overall story arc, as well as the journey of our two leads.
  3. A brief bit on the ´why this and why you?´ Basically, why I felt so strongly about the show, and why I felt I was the best man for the job of bringing to written life.
  4. Short QnA, mainly focused on how I intended to bring this show to life, and how I would present a show with several themes and an emotional arc to the children who would make up its primary audience, trying to find the right balance of complex and accessible.

It felt really good to do a dry run of the pitch for Very Strange Things in class. Aside from the kind and rather receptive audience (bearing in mind these are university students and young filmmakers. Not always the most welcoming of balances....), it was the first time in a while I had to do on the spot improv and public speaking, which is always a good adrenaline booster and keeps me on my toes. However, I feel this test was more important because it finally gave me the means to exorcise a few anxieties I had about ´Wow, how the hell am I going to make this sound semi-reasonable or sensical when put into spoken words?!´ As you can imagine, pitching a mystery-fantasy-adventure series dealing with all sorts of weird and wacky things from alchemy to cybernetics to immortality to underworld freaks, and even pirates and cowboys for good measure!

It´s quite a relief, really, and it did help bolster my energy and confidence in the project as I feel that now, I know I can present it as well as it having legs beyond just my own desires and tastes.

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