MEST 2 Film Pitch

For all Year 12 students...

Organise yourselves into the groups that you want to work in for your practical productions (remember that the maximum number allowed by the exam board in a group is four) and complete the MEST 2 blogs task (see posting below).

Look carefully at the following documents, making notes to help you...

• The brief you have been issued with for your practical production coursework.
• The specification outline of the unit.
• The MEST 2 mark scheme.

Your first task is to prepare a film pitch (where you would try to sell your idea to Prime Time Productions to get the budget you require of £5m).

Prepare a presentation in which you can make use of PowerPoint, video, multimedia (Moviemaker) etc. to include the following for your pitch:

• Overview of the idea (film treatment) explaining the genre of your film (its use of conventions, iconography, etc.); a synopsis of the narrative (referring to narrative theory, e.g. Todorov, Barthes, Levi Strauss); details of setting (mise en scene); characters (use Propp's character terminology, refer to stereotypes: challenged/reinforced?), etc.. Ensure you also discuss some film language ideas (cinematography, lighting, sound, editing) and employ competent use of the key concepts (MIGRAIN) and media terminology.
• Explore fully how your film would appeal to more than the mainstream 16-25 youth market. Refer to audience demographics (gender, class: socio-economic group, ethnicity) and psychographics. Use Young & Rubicam's 4Cs.
• Address what content is likely to be in this film that would mean the trailer could only be shown in cinemas showing films that have been classified as 15 or 18. Use the BBFC Classification Guidelines to help you.

Bear in mind that in order to make a meaningful trailer (where you condense the narrative using a montage of shots) you must understand the full narrative structure of your film.

After Xmas - on 4th January 2011 - you will pitch your ideas to the 'film board' to see if they consider your idea suitable for funding. You must all play a part in the pitch process!

Remember from here on in this is all about being CREATIVE, let's see the creativity start flowing now and not just have people reading from the whiteboard! Use this guide about how to prevent Death by PowerPoint, especially the checklist on slide 58.

To get an idea of how NOT to pitch a film please see the Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn attempt!