Pre-Production: 'Greenlight' Presentation Pitch & Production Breakdown

Introduction

For the first half of our final year of university, one of our first projects is our pre-production unit. This can be broken down into 2 halves, which are:

Major Project: This is if you are going to use your pre-production package to form and prepare to produce your major project. Or...

High Concept Idea: This is if you are going to create a production with no limitations - this includes budget, effects, etc. The purpose of this idea is so you can create something without having any restrictions however of course you don't film it - you plan and prepare it as if your pitching it someone whom can actually produce it.

Nonetheless, I have decided to choose the major project idea. This is because my colleague, Kate and I have already decided over summer that we wanted to create a major project together as we feel our skills work very well together, like so in the past (e.g. we both helped each other create our professional practice unit films).

What's Our Idea?

As we have already spoken about what to do our major project, the first couple of weeks returning back to university was to brainstorm our plot and narrative for our idea. This was then to be presented to our course leaders and classmates as a 'Greenlight' Presentation - basically pitching our idea to see if it gets the 'green light' to be continued to be developed on.

Below is what we presented which gives you a brief explanation as to what our major project is, and an analysis of what our pilot episode (which is what we will be producing for our major project) breakdown is plus the plot in general.

Pre-Production Presentation

Presentation Feedback

All in all, Kate and I felt quite confident with our presentation as we have done a reasonable amount of work on our project, particularly on the narrative-side. Nonetheless, below are some comments which our course leader, Simon, and classmates gave back to us:

   - To watch the film Smash, as this film has similar characters to ours. This will be watched and
     analysed to see how it can relate to our characters and if it has similar stereotypes
   - To make our idea seem more risk-taking. By this, Simon mentioned how we needed to make it
     seem more dramatic if the AmDram company were to loose their company due to financial
     reasons. It needs a reason so that they don't just return back to their ordinary lives and instead
     shows passion that if the company is lost, then the characters are likely to be hugely effected.
     Someone then mentioned perhaps having a character to use all of their money into the company,
     meaning if the company closes, then the character would be left broke and even homeless.
    - That our story regarding risk-taking is very clear and effective, however this needs to be made
      sure that we see plenty of risk-taking throughout the pilot.
    - To make sure we know what our pre-production package is, as we didn't include it in our
      presentation. This too will be worked and shown on my blog in due time.
    - To think about finding someone else to help with our work, as I am doing 3 skillets
      (screenwriting, cameraman and editing) which could be hard to maintain all 3 skills.

Conclusion

All in all, the feedback we received was very helpful. Kate and I will continue to work on our idea however making sure that we try to make the problem in our narrative seem more effective and dramatic, as we need to highlight how important the company is for our characters, and more importantly showing how passionate they are for the company.