Day 2 - screen writing/Pitching

Today we had learnt a bit about screen writing and how it is done most effectively and what effects it has on the industry. We then looked at the structure of short stories as well as presenting a production pitch.

Short Film

looking at short stories i learnt about the genres that are unique to short films, mostly the genres are the same as feature lengths but because of the time limit, some parts of the structure have to be altered in order to get the story across.

We then tested our knowledge of short film structure by watching a short film called 'Sebastians Voodoo' . while watching this we had to identify the following: Hook/initial image, Inciting incident, plot/turning point 1, Midpoint (key decision), Plot/turning point 2 and finally the climax. This was an interesting task as different people had different opinions on which parts where the turning and mid points as different parts of the story line stood out to people differently.

Presenting a Production Pitch

When talking about how to present a good production pitch, we spoke about why production pitches are so important, especially in the industry, production pitches are used to get funding and companies on board with your film so that it is able to go ahead. Essentially, without funding or a team that is willing to produce your ideas, you won't be able to produce your product to a decent standard.

We looked at what to include when giving a pitch, such as the genre of your film, some information about the main characters, what the goal of the characters is, what obstacle they have to overcome to achieve that goal and finally what the outcome will be. It is important to use dynamic language, imagery and references to current productions as it gives your audience chance to visualize it in their mind and form an opinion.

Later on...

Later on during day 2 at Film Oxford, we gathered as a production team to discuss our different short story ideas. we then had to choose 2 out of our 6 ideas to carry forward, develop and present a pitch to the other production groups... 

Here is a video of one of our production ideas: