Pre-production- Pitch

Today we pitched our idea 'Re-worked' to the class.

"The verbal pitch can effectively convey your passion, your professional skills, and your ability to handle the project" - (Producing for TV and New Media)

Our idea had changed slightly from our original pitch plan. Our original pitch was going to be a documentary looking at the LGBT society today and focus on the rise/inclusion of straight drag queens. 
We'd have static interviews from people in the LGBT community and ask them about the history of the community and how they've seen it change, they'd be re-visited through out the doc.
We'd then meet the main contributor of the doc (a straight drag queen), and look at everyday life for them. They'd be interviewed about work and life experiences from being a drag queen and how they feel they fit in the LGBT community.
There'd be three 'expert voices', Oliver, a young drag queen, DR Elly Barnes, who started an organisation called 'educate and celebrate' with an aim to educate schools about LGBT issues, and the organiser from a nursery who arranges for a company called 'Drag Queen Story Time' to come and talk to the kids about gender fluidity.

Target Audience: 18- 50. Adult range, preferably male and female demographic.

Target Channel: channel 4. Longer, more serious format. Based on education and celebrating diversity.

Because our doc is aimed at Channel 4 I looked into what they look for when commissioning a doc.

It is given that we always look for warmth and humour in the ideas that we take forward with independent companies, but other things we look for in documentary proposals and discuss at length with independent companies include:

1. Authenticity. Do the ideas reflect the real world in a way that feels genuine and authentic? (Diary of A Junior Doctor, 999 What’s Your Emergency, Benefit Street)
2. Freshness. Is there something in the proposal that is genuinely new, says something about society now and tells a story that has not been told before? (Kids on The Edge, Extremely British Muslims, Secret Life of Prisons, Gun Shop)
3. Innovation. Is there something about the boldness of proposition or the use of technology that is breaking new ground? (The Trial, Hunted, UKIP First 100 Days)
4. Compelling storytelling. Are we likely to be gripped by the narratives that unfold in the programme? (24 Hours in Custody, Murder Detectives, Supervet, A&E)
5. Extraordinary and pleasurable access that feels like a privilege to the Channel 4 viewer (A Very British Hotel, The Mormons, Secret Life of the Zoo)

(Channel 4 Documentaries commissioning website)

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Pros of this idea are

• We'd have a wide range of views and opinions from people of different ages, locations and sexualities
• We'd be exploring an angle that hasn't been looked at really in mainstream media
• It uses the popularity of Drag Queens to gain an audience and appeal to a wide range of people

Cons of this idea are

• The audience isn't able to connect with the 'panel' of people we have put together
• The 'panel' take up a lot of air time that would other wise be going to Zodie
• We had the idea that Zodie would perform at a Drag cabaret at the end of the doc in front of the 'panel', however we don't have the budget for that.

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After a meeting with Helen myself and Jemma made some amendments for the narrative. 

The producer's role is to bring a film idea all the elements it needs to reach an audience. This will include:

• developing the idea with the director

(Creative Documentary: Theory and Practice) 

We decided to focus in on drag queens and therefore decided not to use Dr Elly or the Drag Queen story time organiser as they wouldn't be relevant to the subject. We also choose to have an older drag queen to give an input from someone who has been doing Drag for many years. We'd also have two heterosexual people to have a opinion from their point of view.

Overall we received good feedback from the class, Simon had some pointers for us that included;

• Guardian Docs, for research - Link to Guardian website
• Sheffield Doc Festival, as a potential place to submit our Doc after it's made. We'd have to look into the guidelines for their submissions.
• He also suggested we take a look at our narrative structure- and ensure that we can cope with which ever way the ending goes. 

Overall from this experience I learnt;

• What I needed to include in my part of the pitch and what I will need to go on to include in my pre-production package. 
• I was able to talk to fellow class mates and potentially help them with their locations and vice versa (for example George Lock's group are looking for a theatre like we are and are able to help us, we can help them too with the same situation).
• I collaborated with Jemma to change the initial idea, we then went on to pitch it to Gavin to see if he was ok with what we had changed in it.

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Pros of this idea are

• There is more time dedicated to Zodie and 
• It's not as much of a strain on the budget in terms of looking for drag cabaret shows
• It's a more interesting narrative

Cons of this idea

• Finding a theatre that won't blow the budget will be difficult
• There is a change contributors will drop out if I don't keep in regular contact with them

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Feedback from Simon

"Overall this is a solid idea, with great potential for you to explore your role as a Producer with great depth.

The idea seems clear and a storyline is emerging - however I think it needs work to bring it further into focus. Think about how you construct this story. You are dealing with an unusual story, with unusual characters who are complex and original, so you should consider taking this approach with the form of your documentary too. Think about taking risks in how you put it together and as producer you should to considering all angles.

From the perspective as your role - it needs to be very detailed. You need to consider with huge detail all the elements that will make up your role. A detailed production plan is essential.  Your contributors are perhaps your most important element of this project. Make sure you are keeping them on side etc through the long process ahead.

You are only being assessed on the producing aspect - so you need to really put the detail in.

Research producing and producers. You should research the genre too of short docs. Think about your platform - go into detail on where this film might have an output. 

Producers often fall into the trap of thinking all they have to do is organise, where as you need to be taking a creative view over the whole production. You will need to produce a detailed list of the elements you are including in the pre-production package so we can draw up your learning agreement with your team." 

From the given feedback I can centre my research around things that will benefit my project. I need to start creating a detailed pre-production package that has research behind it to back up what I want to do.