Pitch #1: Differing Perspectives


Pitch #1: A documentary focusing on African refugees who have made their home here in the United States. I know several people born in the Congo, and had to flee to America under violent regimes. One of them witnessed his grandfather get executed. These folks have made a home here in America and have become an integral part of the community here. An angle I think would be interesting to explore is: how does their perception of world and political events inform their view on America's current situation? Many prominent government officials - the president, attorney general, president's advisors, etc, have been accused of or have a provable history of racist behavior. What are these folks' thoughts on America's current political situation, with the perspective they have from a much more violent country? I plan on incorporating backstory from their experiences before coming to America. I may choose to completely focus the story on their experiences as well, without getting into the political weeds -- I haven't decided yet.

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 12, 2018 at 11:36 PM

    This would be super interesting! There's so many different angles that you could go, but I'm not sure if you could do this story justice without getting at least a little bit political, so maybe you should embrace that. Refugees are a population who unfortunately don't get their stories told very often once they've "made it" over, but we're all familiar with how hard life for them was beforehand. I don't tend to shy away from politics, so I'm sure that we would do this piece very differently, but I'd consider making this about refugees' lives here, and what support they need.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMarch 13, 2018 at 8:01 AM

    Ben,

    I like the idea of not making the story political, for a very key reason: it already is. After one of the awards shows--I think it was the Grammys--an administration official lamented that the arts had become so political, and I couldn't help but laugh. I don't think that there's such a thing as apolitical art. Once a person, with their background and bias, chooses to tell a story, even that choice is political. What that means is that often, when someone is being consciously political, it comes off as heavy handed. I know in workshop, certainly, whenever anyone had a big message they were trying to fit into their story, it ruined it for me. I think giving refugees a voice in this way--that is just political enough.

    I'm curious to see what directions the interviews pull this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMarch 13, 2018 at 2:27 PM

    Well, shoot, John's post took the words out of my mouth. I think that the interviewees' perspectives on both American current events and their personal past should take precedence in this documentary. Because of your background in music, I feel that this documentary would also be a great opportunity to showcase the interviewees' favorite music, too! (Just a suggestion.) :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. BballengerMarch 14, 2018 at 10:40 AM

    This is an important story, Ben. What you're pitching, however, sounds at lot like a journalistic documentary rather than an essayistic one. What draws you to want to talk to these refugees other than compassion for their struggles? In what ways do their struggles present struggles for you? For example, I would be drawn to learn more about your Congo friend's story not only because it would be interesting, but because it might help re calibrate my own fears about keeping my family safe. It might put such fears in a new perspective. I know it's hard to say exactly the ways in which refugee stories might touch your own life, but do you have any initial thoughts about that?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Documentary Pitch

This pitch is more of a proof of concept than anything else, but I think it would be fun. I asked Bruce whether or not a 'mockumentary' was a valid interpretation of this assignment, to which the response was a semi-enthusiastic "pitch it!" So here is the pitch. A parody of the audio series 'Serial', the investigation into the murder of a teenage girl that went viral a few years ago. Uncreatively, the title of this parody would be 'Cereal' and it would chronical the investigation into who ate my box of Strawberry Honey Bunches of Oats. I would 'interview' my family and friends with a ridiculous amount of production and decoration, acting like I was trying to get to the bottom of a murder, but in reality just trying to find out who ate my damn cereal. This may be too narrative-y, but the climax I image would be a removal of the façade and me attacking my little brother for eating my cereal. Trust me, it's really funny in my he...
Read more

Pitchin' the Story

What is the trouble? In my family there is a letter that has gained quite a bit of infamy. The letter is from one of my relatives directed at his father in law, and is really quite a gem. It contains a poorly spelled indictment of the author's own father in law for such grievous offenses as lying about height and being an all around ass hole. The letter calls the subject, "the littlest man in the biggest way." I don't even know the author very well, but this letter has circulated to the whole extended family and has become a joke among everyone who reads it. While I was thinking of this letter I got to thinking about writing letters to people in general, and angry or regretful letters in particular. I might want to do a story about the letters, messages, or texts that can't be taken back but we wish could! Just recently my brother tried to text me a message telling me to, "suck on deez nutz," but he accidentally sent to it to a woman who he was going...
Read more
I discovered two different areas of the genre while working on this piece. While I knew the concept of jumping right into the fire I didn't understand how powerful it was until I heard it. The vocal element adds even more emotional punch to strong first lines. As I read it I found myself stumbling over formal words and slipping into more contractions and slang. I edited as I was reading it to make it flow more naturally. Fragments can work in your favor here as there is no long written twisting sentence for the reader to get lost in and instead a natural way of speaking.
Read more