Into the Storm

 So today was the day! The long awaited 2nd round of pitches. Since the last round of pitches, I called the doc subject, learned more about it him, where he was generally staying in, figured out a story that can be told through his experience, and prepared a better pitch for this upcoming round. Last time I pitched, I really just mentioned the vibe the I wanted and that I wanted to learn something from him, so I figured I was in the better spot by this point. I just had to brave the storm.

When I got to the room, I wanted to go up as soon as I could to get it out of the way sooner than later, but that didn't quite work out. Some people were just a bit more eager than me to raise their hands up as soon as they could, so I ended up being about the 5th person up. When I did go up I explained that I had done a call with the guy, and wanted to frame the documentary within this person's finally days before his yearly "pilgrimage" westward. I wanted to contextualize their person's home, what they like about it, and why they still feel the need to leave. I figured that would work, but then came my teacher's main point of scrutiny.

"How do you know if this person is safe?"

I like to think I'm a pretty level headed person, when he initially reached out to my Reddit post, I looked through his account history, his Instagram activity, and even some surface level background checks on the guy, he seemed clean. Then came our call, which he seemed very reasonable and genuine. So as I filled in the gaps from the previous round of pitches, I now had new cracks to patch. Though again, I was receiving very positive reactions and feedback from my classmates who were very interested in the idea. Including someone who pitched the idea of doubling out in the opening, which in the moment I wasn't too keen on, but I did appreciate the sentiment.

During the 2nd round of pitches, I learned that one of my classmates, Ruben, was exploring a documentary just so happen to be about 30 minutes away from where the van guy who living. We did lock anything at the time, but we both acknowledge the convenient geography and our interest in working with one another. 

A quirk of losing a week in film school was having deadlines pile up. We were having out 2nd round of pitches the same week as our first round of individual meetings, crewing, and a research paper due Sunday. So if there was a time to start locking down, it's now. 

The next day I managed to get in contact with one of the doc subject's sister's to get a more removed perception of the guy as well as doing a more thorough background check on him. In reference to the call with the sister it was a very enlightening one. I was perhaps one of the more difficult phone calls for me to navigate. I wanted to come off as trustworthy to get to know her as her relationship with her brother while also trying to gauge whether or not the guy was safe to have a doc made about it. She was very kind and very informative, and over time she eventually did lower her walls and began to talk truthfully about her brother and the role he played within the family. He was by no means unsafe, but he did have a falling out with the family. Nothing crazy in my opinion, just a disagreement when it came to their life perspectives. With this new information, I tweaked the structure of the doc I had pitched on Monday, and felt like I had gotten more information to further gauge the safety of the topic.

During the individual meeting the next day, I explained the new structure, the call I had, and the information I gathered from the background check. Still though, my instructor had her doubts. This instructor was a former studio executive who is very familiar with the pitching process and providing notes to ensure a final story is solid and explains why she pushed back so much. I have understood this strategy of hers and have found it to be helpful in strengthening what I wanted to explore, but it's exhausting. It felt like every time I speak with her there was a new thing that wasn't mentioned prior, and we finally reached what I felt was more opinion than objective.

In describing the dynamic of the brother and sister, I describe it as one where the brother is somewhat estranged, but had returned home due to the a health condition of one of his parents. While he's been gone, he would regularly communicate with his sister, so he was never too far away from the family.

My instructor went on to talk about how she is familiar with that dynamic of a lone sister who becomes the one member of a family who tries to keep in contact with an estranged family member, and that it usually relates to drug abuse and/or crime. It also didn't help that apparently my instructor was that kind of sister to an estranged brother because of a drug problem. While I saw the parallels, I had no reason to believe it was all rooted in a drug problem, but I found it difficult to try and explain otherwise to someone who acted so certain about the situation.

My instructor, then asked me why I wanted to make this doc in the first place, and that if I just wanted to interview someone who was homeless and worked laboriously why not interview a day laborer off the streets of Tallahassee. It was clear she did seem like a fan of the idea nor my intent to do the doc which was frustrating. On one side, I have what seems like an overwhelming sense of support and curiosity from my peers, but my instructors are so dead set on constantly wearing me down with new complaints to the point where it feels more subjective than objective.

The meeting ended with her asking if I have a plan B for a doc idea...

Truthfully I did, I had early on talked with my good friend, Isa Chiappini, about the potentially of doing on doc on them back when I thought we were mandated to have 2 separate ideas to pitch (when I learned that the 2nd pitch could just be re-pitching an idea I went with that). I felt like I could always do a doc on Isa, but I wanted challenge myself and felt doing a doc on my friend and Venezuela in 2025 was "too easy". Low and behold, when I mention the idea to my instructor, she reacted very positive to the idea. I barely even had a structure, I just mentioned Isa, Venezuela, immigration, and queerness, and that seemed to do the trick. My instructor encouraged me to pursue both ideas and see which one develops more.

By Friday, the class had to have a plan for crewing, which is difficult when you have one idea in North Carolina and another in Orlando. While it seemed like people were crewing left and right, I felt a little unsure about what was going to happen with me. By this point Ruben and I decided to lock each other, but we still didn't have a 3rd for our group. Normally the faculty suggest crewing by geography, hence Ruben and I, but we didn't quite know who that 3rd person would be.

Thursday night, Ruben and I found ourselves in a group chat with another classmate, Carlos. He had explained that his initial plans for crewing based on geography fell through, and that he was reaching out to us as the next closest to Pennsylvania. With a 3rd member missing for Ruben and I, and our close relationship to Carlos it was a no brainer. We locked ourselves in as Group #2.

With a research paper due Sunday, I pivoted to focusing on making a decision for what I would be doing as my doc. If I was going to write a research paper it ought to be about what I was doing. I talked with my roommate, my partner, and classmates about how I was feeling about pitches, the doc subjects, and how I felt I was fighting an uphill battle every week. I felt so excited about the doc idea, my groupmates were supportive, and truly I felt like this doc could be really worthwhile and fulfilling, but I was so unhappy. I felt stressed, confused, and doubtful in myself. I'm not saying every instructor should be overly positive, but it does take a toll when all you hear is negative and it just feels like they just don't want you to make something. I had also just crewed with two people in large part out of geography, so I felt weird switching ideas after them voicing their support. 

I don't remember what specifically was my deciding factor, but in the end I figured I could just have fun with a friend in Orlando and stop thinking about deciding.

I texted Carlos and Ruben about how I was feeling, and they showed their support and said we would figure it out. I texted Isa and I asked to get on a call that weekend to discuss what specifically the doc would entail. And lastly I wrote that fuckass research paper on decades of immigration and political turnoil. 

So after about a month of planning and a month out from departure, I swapped out my leading doc idea for another and now we had to move double time. It was go time.