T.V. & New Broadcasting Media Blog - Jordan Jackson

This week we have been discussing pitches, learning about how to pitch our own ideas. I learnt that all films, or television programmes must be pitched to a producer before being funded. As this is the method used in Hollywood, it will be interesting to have to pitch our own ideas next week. We learnt that a successful pitch must be short and sweet. It should be intriguing, leaving the 'producer' wanting more. A pitch should not be long, for fear of being boring. Pitching was the main subject of the week, however we did talk some more about storytelling. A useful tip I learnt was that it is easier to write a story backwards. This is very clever, as writing a story without an ending can be daunting, and lack structure. Therefore, this week whilst thinking of my pitch I shall try to think of a stories end first and work backwards. The rest of this week I shall be coming up with short film ideas, as I need to have a pitch ready for next week.

In the first week we had a lecture under the topic of film narratives. We discussed what it is that makes a good cinematic narrative. A number of examples were given, from a primarily one film story 'Jaws' and then to the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy where one narrative spans multiple films. It was discussed that most successful films are based upon simple ideas, and so it is my intention to apply this thinking to my own film project. A particularly noteworthy part of the lecture was learning of the three act structure. It is a structure that can be applied to almost all forms of narratives, especially with films. The structure is broken into three acts which are: Act 1 - Equilibrium Act 2 - Dis-equilibrium  Act 3 - Re-equilibrium In act 1 everything is is as its usual self, presumably how the narrative was before the audience view the film. Act 2 is the disruption, it is the reason for watching the film, the conflict. During this act something happens to dis...