Hey again! Today we worked on narrowing down our ideas for our final task until we were left with two pitches to choose from before making an official decision. In order to even come up with our pitches, we first needed to ensure that we could actually produce the opening to a full-length film from these conceptualizations, hence why we first brainstormed a list of potential plots and eliminated any pitches that we couldn't flesh out, leaving us with the two you see here. We also evaluated the logistics of each of our choices as you will see below because we didn't want to commit to something that we couldn't follow through on, as that would cause us to fall behind schedule and leave us with a seemingly perfunctory piece of work that would not encapsulate how much effort we truly put in. With that out of the way, I can now introduce to you the two pitches in question.
Pitch A:
It was just a normal day at home, but after stepping into their closet, things are about to take an unexpected turn for this teenager.
My group and I were open to this idea from the very beginning being that it offered up so many different ways of playing out. To us, it was like a rabbit hole that we couldn't help but want to get lost in and explore. As with any concept in its early stages, even though we might favor an idea, it is important to be realistic before making a finalized decision. Having said that, we will need to look at multiple aspects related to filming in general, the first of which is casting. In our prompt, we defined our subject to be a young adult, and being that we are teenagers, it would be quite easy for us to use someone we know is willing to participate as our protagonist.
With that out of the way, we would also need to consider the location in which we would be filming. As stated in our pitch, the film would be set in the subject's home; therefore, it is highly likely that all of our filming would be confined to one general location, which may cause the audience to lose interest if the cinematography is not executed correctly. Now, whilst filming in one location may not seem like much of an advantage at first glance, one should also consider the high transport costs that come as a result of gas prices and time lost due to traffic (especially since we live in Florida) that we would have otherwise run into had we chosen to vary our film's locations. Filming in one location will not only allow us to optimize our time, but it will also give us the opportunity to become familiar with our set, meaning that we may very well discover certain features that will enable us to attain a shot that may not have been otherwise possible. To further drive this point to "home base", one can simply see how successful other producers have been with using this tactic, with M. Night Shyamalan who has created the hit television show "Servant," which is based entirely in one house, and Andrew Meyer having led the production on the blockbuster flick, "The Breakfast Club," which was filmed entirely in one school.
Going back to filming considerations, we must also look to perhaps one of the most essential factors, our budget. As briefly mentioned early, using one location gives us a huge advantage in the fact that it lowers travel costs by minimizing mobility, keeping us from spending a substantial amount of money during production, which, seeing as we are relatively broke high schoolers who don't have access to the latest, state of the art film equipment that professional studios and producers do, and we need to operate on limited resources, is something that this pitch allows us to do. In my book, I'd call this pitch a major win, a real "home run" if you will.
Likewise, since our subject is a teenager, it won't be difficult for us to obtain casual clothing for them to wear (it is set in their home after all), so we can tick that off of our list of matters that needed to be addressed. Since all of the necessary resources for this filming project can be acquired on short notice it makes this pitch a great candidate for our official premise.
Pitch B:
A kid finds out that their imaginary friend is not who they seem.
This was another pitch that we had come up with. We thought that this would be quite interesting to film because, like Pitch A, it could head in so many different directions, would their imaginary friend turn out to be evil, perhaps they'd be the ghost of their late brother, or maybe their imaginary friend will have been real all along? With that, I think it becomes very clear as to why we found this pitch to be so gripping. To evaluate the practicality of this pitch, we can use the same criteria as we did above, with our first consideration being casting. In this case, the only thing we've set in stone is that the primary subject of our film would be a young child, a preteen at most, whereas we've left the age of their imaginary friend entirely undefined. As such, it might be difficult to obtain a young child who will act in the appropriate manner, and learn and adhere to a script in time for filming, which is worrisome since our entire film would hinge on whether or not that is possible in the first place.
Shifting our focus now to the location of the film, which we have left undefined, it is clear that the possibilities are virtually endless. Unlike Pitch A, we are given free-range mobility and can travel to different places to obtain more varied shots that will not only contribute to our plotline, perhaps by revealing why the child has or sees their imaginary friend in the first place, but that will also keep our audience entertained as each different location would serve as a change of pace. On the other hand, however, this does have some inherent drawbacks when it comes to our budget, as more money would be spent on traveling from place to place and it may prove to be difficult to reshoot flawed scenes in locations that are far away or hard to reach.
Our Final Pitch:
Looking at the two pitches both holistically and comparatively, one will see that with Pitch A there are some concerns regarding the use of a singular location, whereas, with Pitch B, our worries lie more with casting and the like. Likewise, with Pitch B we believe that it may be difficult to establish enough context to constitute a backstory of sorts and do the movie (if we were to create a full-length feature film) any justice when creating its opening, whilst with Pitch A was able to create the right level of mystery and intrigue that we feel is something we can build off of, especially since we have already laid a solid foundation with a statement that is ambiguous enough that will leave our audience wanting more, but still grounded enough where we, as filmmakers, aren't left questioning the general plot last minute. Of course, in the end, it comes down to one simple question, "How doable is it?" To be entirely honest, we were able to come up with more ideas related to our first pitch, Pitch A, as opposed to our second pitch, Pitch B. That being the case, after careful deliberation and consideration, we have ultimately decided to follow through with Pitch A.
Closing Remarks:
As is to be expected, we did have our disagreements about what our final pitch would be and it did take quite a while to even get it down to these two, but with a little cooperation and a couple of compromises, we were able to reach a verdict to go with Pitch A. I really think that our final task is sure to be a real "dinger¹," so I have no doubts that we'll "Knock it out of the park" (Sam & Dave 1993).
¹ Dinger is a slang word that is commonly used in baseball and which means "home run."
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