Second Pitch

Here's a bit of a summary of the second pitching session in which there was a chance to develop our ideas and address any issues that had arisen after the first pitch as well as giving us the opportunity to pitch to a new audience member with a fresh set of eyes and ears: Ross McKenzie from Creative Scotland.  

Since the first pitch I have been concentrating on getting my story to work. 

I have come up with a simple structure for the narrative, based on just a few key moments and situations. By stripping the narrative back to these few key moments I found it easier to ensure that there is a story structure that will make sense and, hopefully, be satisfying. This forms a skeleton onto which I can build the more 'delicate', 'human' moments that will flesh out the story and develop our connections with, and understanding of, the characters.

This slide from the pitch (click it for a bigger view) shows the breakdown of the story: the key moments-

1. An old man in the town looks, longingly, to the hills.
2. A deer-man in the hills looks, longingly, to the town.
3. Old man resolves to take to the hills. On his way he finds a shed deer's antler which he takes (and later decides to wear), leaving his walking stick behind.
4. Deer-man is lonely.
5. At some point the old man and the deer-man come upon one another and share a cup of tea (an act of human kindness which triggers the transformation of the deer-man into something less wild).
6. Old man stays in the hills and puts on a second antler which the deer-man has just shed (old man's transformation is self initiated: he chooses to wear the antlers, he decides to become something more wild).
7. Deer-man, encouraged by the human interaction makes his way to the town. On his way down he finds a discarded walking stick... which he takes, leaving his remaining antler behind.

This narrative can be read either as a straight swap for the characters (they each long for elements of the other's life... and in the end get it) or it can be seen as cyclical (there is now an antler where there was one before, a man with a walking stick in town and a man wearing antlers in the hills just as there is at the start of the film) in which case the film's message has an increased 'grass is always greener' tone.

The pitch was received well with a general agreement that this distilled story structure works. The challenge, now, will be the handling of the afore-mentioned more 'delicate' moments that flesh it out. It was Alan's opinion that a particular challenge will be how to deal with the meeting of the deer-man and the old man, one of the most important moments in the film that will also potentially be one of the most dynamic and 'action packed' (though I use the term with caution).

I think that there was a slight concern that the motivations for the deer-man to go down to the town may not be clear but I am confident that, through the delicate moments and character development, I can paint the picture that the deer-man is lonely in the hills and craves the human interaction that, he thinks, can be found in the town. Shots like the panel in which that deer-man is looking to the town will hopefully go a long way to help this.