true to form, reflection #5

Pitch Session Feedback 

I’ve learnt numerous times in this course that the pitch of a film is crucial – your idea may not be ‘great’ but if you present it well and sell yourself, there’s a good chance that the powers that be may buy into you. Luckily, our studio pitch session was casual… two hours of really wonderful ideas.

Robin Plunkett, who taught me last year in the ‘Translating Observation’ studio, had some helpful pointers for my project – Mary In The ‘Burbs. He began by stating, “If weird things happen to weird people, are those things truly weird or are they normal?” This of course was in relation to my protagonist’s costume: an ode to the Virgin Madonna. I’ve always been fascinated by the holy figure and through out every film I’ve made, I’ve tried to piece her into the story somehow. It wasn’t until this semester that my vision was able to become a reality because the circumstances of my project finally allowed it. I understand where Robin is coming from though – as an audience, we’re not likely to be taken on a wild ride if the character in question is already wild herself. Robin confirmed what I already knew. The explicit Virgin Mary costume had to go. This being said, I’m still a firm believer in having the protagonist dress up in a strange attire of some sort. She will wear a contemporary Virgin Mary costume – a modern reincarnation of the traditional white robe and blue veil. This will assist in ensuring that the film contains a unique aesthetic… one in which nothing has to properly make sense.

Robin also raised a point that I hadn’t thought of before – the fact that my film isn’t totally free of narrative constraints. Each of my four scenes do follow a story but it is only free of a concrete ‘narrative’ because I have invited the audience to view only a fragment of it. For example, the Telephone Booth Scene has no beginning, only a middle and a supposed end. The audience don’t know what they’re witnessing or why and that’s what makes it exciting – only offering them a few minutes of each scenario without any context.