BSA231 W2 : Pitch Practice

Today in class we learned about pitching and did a practice round in which we had to apply the skills we discussed (although by the time we arrived at the 1 minute presentations most of that stuff was somewhat forgotten).

The first idea I thought of pitching was Homes, a crime procedural-like show with a Sherlock Holmes type character who uses his expertise for house inspections instead of anything important - but he's the best in the business.

We kept thinking of ideas we'd had in the past and I decided to go instead with this:

A biographical movie about the man, the legend, Charles II of Spain. This monarch sat on the throne for years and baffled hundreds by somehow managing to stay alive. See he was a creature born from generations of incest, his family tree was a wreath, as such he had many mental and physical disabilities and his inability to bear forth children left him the last of his line. 

I wanted to get the point across quickly, since this was going to be just a minute long presentation, so I said the title and a quick quote about the man of the hour just to give everyone a quick idea of what exactly this abomination of a man is all about. In the presentation itself I expanded upon this a bit of course, providing my captive audience with a quick description of Charles' incestual origin and sad life.

This is something I included simply because it's something required in our actual presentations, for this one it was just a quick, not at all thought out slide, that I skipped past during my presentation.

I want to make the film , at least structurally, like Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. These were both written by Eric Roth and both feature a person born with a special disability as the lead as it tracks his life events and the amazing feats he manages to achieve. I wanted to parody this with Charles II, someone whose amazing feats were limited to just staying alive and someone for who everyone was constantly waiting to die. This idea of people just waiting for his passing, knowing he's the last of his line, and the War of Spanish Succession that followed his death, all make for good material. I'm thinking of representing these characters in a similar way to what you can see in The Death of Stalin.

The story will be told from the perspective of a painter who is hired to make a portrait of the deformed king, and he has to make it look good. I think this is a good relatable POV to take and plays on the fact that he had many paintings made of him and historically painters had to make their rulers look better than they actually did anyway. 

Advertising-wise and speaking about the appeal of the film I think we should use the main characters shocking appearance as a way to get people into the theater. Like elephant man or something a big reason for buying the ticket should be to see the monster.

I came to discover Charles II through historical memes and I think a biography of him would have to be made with this culture in mind. That means a more modern approach, hopefully getting the licensing to incorporate enough meme songs into the soundtrack (oh yeah I'm going for a budget of approx 90 million USD)

Making fun of disabled people can be very offensive (obviously) but I don't think I care and I'm hoping the excuse that he's a product of extreme incest (he's level 5 inbred!) excuses this. 

I also recently heard that Ken or someone isn't allowed to do what he originally wanted for his third year project (which was a historical Korean thing) because someone considers it some kind of appropriation, so I am strengthened in my resolve to make something offensive.