Telling Stories with FilmCulminating Task

Develop an idea for your own original feature film and create a five-page “pitch packet” (a description that tells your film’s story and gives some details of its style, visual effects, and sounds) for your idea. What story do you want to tell your audience? Why? How will you use filmmaking and storytelling techniques to create a film that brings your ideas and vision to life?

Your “pitch packet” will include the film’s title, a logline, portraits of its characters, a statement describing your concept, and a synopsis of each act.

In developing and writing your pitch packet, be sure to do the following:

• Communicate the overall idea for the movie through its title, concept statement, and the movie genre it represents.

• Summarize and “sell” the central idea for the movie through a concise but vivid logline.

• Present portraits of at least two main characters that describe the characters’ traits, needs and conflicts, backstories, and character arcs.

• Present a vivid synopsis of the movie’s three acts, highlighting its storyline and beats and how it develops from exposition, to complication, to a climax and resolution.

• Include ideas about how to use visual effects, camerawork, sound, and music to bring your movie to life.

• Write in a persuasive mode, attempting to pitch your proposed movie to an audience of producers or financiers.

• Use present tense when describing the movie’s concept, characters, scenes, and story beats.

• Present your clearest and strongest writing, using correct and effective language, sentence structures, and conventions.