Pitching

Today was spent coming up with ideas for original pitches. We used newspapers as stimuli for our ideas.

My pitch was this:

"A cutting edge documentary drama about the treacherous lives of families living in a warzone. 'Frontline Families' explores the daily trauma experienced by warzone civilians.
While the media covers the facts, the figures and the politics, it is easy to forget about the people most affected."

There is rarely any information about the people living there. People forget that the war is happening in a real place and there are real, innocent people involved. They had no choice about the war and just had it happen around them while they still have to live their lives as normally as they can. This idea could also be taken in various ways. I think it is very important to get the real-life footage and hard facts first. A one off dispatches programme perhaps could cover this. That then opens up the possibility of a continuing series. Either documentary or drama. If it were to continue as a drama series, it could really focus on the characters and pulling heart-strings. As a documentary series each episode could involve different people. Like the children, the teachers, the parents, the shop owners etc. And how different people have been affected in different ways.

I got the idea from an article in the Independent about the war. I can't remember the main theme but basically, the citizens of Marjah had been warned to leave but not everyone could afford to do that so had to stay put as trenches are dug around them. Those who could leave, were searched upon arrival in new towns and had no support from the government with food shortages and such.

Unfortunately only my written pitch got filmed because the card ran out of space!

Ta da!