M3: Show an understanding of feedback and be able to respond to questions
After the presentation, I was asked a few questions.
I was asked about where the production would be filmed. I responded that it would be filmed in a single city or town, using different sides of the town to make it seem like the characters are in different parts of the country. I would also use the surrounding fields and other areas surrounding the city to create the journey that the teens go on throughout the duration of the series. I felt that this question shouldn't have had to be asked as I should have included information such as this in the presentation itself as well as other pieces of sample material.
I was also asked about characters in the show. I responded by saying that the character profiles were not done yet and that I wanted to take more time to refine them. I didn't mention that this would be a fairly character driven story and that this was the reason I wanted to take more time to do them. I also didn't mention that while I was making the presentation, I didn't see anywhere that would be appropriate to put character profiles and other sample material.
One of the executives couldn't make it to the presentations but they watched them back and emailed me some questions.
"If we were commission your show, how many episodes would be produced per series and how long would they be and when would they be released?" There would be about 6 - 8 episodes in the first series and they would be around 45 minutes each. They would be released on BBC iPlayer at 9pm on a Friday so the viewer has an entire weekend to watch it if they can't watch it as soon as it's released.
"If we were to get an increase in the budget, what would be the main changes you would make? What would be your priority?" First we would think about hiring a more well known actor to play a supporting role. We would also thing about using more locations as this would make the show feel more like you're travelling.
D1: Discuss the client considerations for the creation of the product from the pitch
Watching my pitch back, I see that it went rather well (better than I expected) but there are still things I could have done to make it better. The feedback I received helped me determine what I could have changed for instance one of the executives asked me about characters and it made me think that maybe I should have included what character profiles I had at the time instead of holding them back because they weren't finished. This also makes me think that if this were to be commissioned, I would have to take more time in pre-production to fully establish the character profiles for each character as this feels like a character driven series and the last thing we want is for the characters to be lacking personality and other essential qualities.
Another thing that was said by one of the executives was that at the start of the pitch, I said that the target audience was from 15 - 25 years old and it was in fact 15 - 21 years old. Although it's not such a big issue, it still shows that I may need to read the brief more closely and make sure I and the rest of the production team don't make any errors like this or worse in the pre-production phase of the project.