As Stayci said to me, the pitches weren’t just to receiving constructive criticism but that it’s also important for our developing practises to reflect on what we’ve done well/what’s working. Upon receiving feedback after my pitch, I was quite disappointed that the main thing I took from it was that each of the panelists really liked the aesthetic vision I was presenting and that they’d love to see the final product. There were such positive comments, but I usually feel as though I benefit greater by receiving feedback on what I could work on, not what’s working. But thinking positively about what the panelists did enjoy about my pitch, could actually benefit me further. Since the aesthetic of my world is what really stuck with the panelists, I know that’s what I should probably explore more than story and character, which wasn’t the direction I originally saw for myself. Considering this, I may start to put the screenplay on the back-burner, but with that being said, I do want to at least try and write some scenes but purely to build my skill in writing.

Stayci also mentioned that I shouldn’t get too married to my synopsis. Looking back at my pitch, I really should have rearranged the order of it. I never intended to pitch a story for a short film, but because I gave the synopsis before even talking about my world, it gave off the impression that I was set in stone with creating this film with the world just being a small part of it. Even though following the synopsis I did talk a lot about my world’s perimeters and style inspiration, I could’ve started with this and made a much stronger pitch. Although, I don’t think I need to be that beat up about it, because my synopsis is quite light, as it just follows a middle-aged man through this unfamiliar world.

I really enjoyed hearing one of the panelists describe my world as “quirky” because this was actually one of the words I was working with in the early development stages of building my world. It was also interesting that my unexplained musical number was reminiscent to her of Twin Peaks, one of my inspirations, and more specifically the dream scenes in the red room, with the dwarf in a red suit dancing on the lino floors. Another panelist described my world as being a “Wes Anderson look with a David Lynch happenings”, and if that isn’t a compliment I don’t know what is. David Lynch has always been a strong source of inspiration for me in terms of subject and style, so I’m not very surprised that his name came up in feedback, but Wes Anderson wasn’t exactly the person I thought my aesthetic vision would relate to. I’ve always thought of Wes Anderson’s style as quite pretentious. I appreciate him as a director and his ability to capture stunning images through perfectly angled shots and the quirky personalities of his characters but I still thought of him as pretentious and found his films boring. Although now thinking about his work after learning about worlds in this studio, I have a new respect for him. Wes Anderson creates very strong worlds, both visually and in narrative because he has clear rules when it comes to his worlds and he doesn’t break them. One of his more heavy films is Moonrise Kingdom, in terms of subject matter and rules of the world, specifically being that death is allowed, unlike some of his where there is a layer of safety. I think I’m more open to hear the similarity my work has to him now than I was before this studio, so I’m definitely going to look more into his work and draw some inspiration from his worlds.

One concern I had with pitching without many visual aids is that I wouldn’t be able to express the visuals I have so strongly in my own head. But after this feedback I was proven wrong and I’m really happy with that. Whether it be from the few visual aids I did provide, or the way I communicated my world, the vision I have is obviously strong enough to convey to an audience through a pitch.

Moving forward from this feedback, I think I have a clear idea of where I’m heading, for at least the next few weeks. Since this studio is about world and not story, I should focus less on how I want to structure my narrative and what I want to happen, if I were to continue with a screenplay, I would need to focus on how I’d go about describing my world through text. I want to continue on with the goal of creating a mood reel. This will be really important in communicating the film world and style and I think it’s really necessary for the sort of world I want to convey.

References:

Moonrise Kingdom. (2012). [film] Directed by W. Anderson.