Pitch Statement/Script
Hello, my name is Dorsa Sajedi and I will be editing For Crimes Forgotten. I chose to take on this project as I have a strong interest in ominous and psychological themes. Alongside this, I’ve begun to tap into the incorporation of fantasy elements in works I’ve edited, such as working as the editor for Old Friends, where we experience the transition between human and vampire. I’ve worked with Dan in the past on a project called Nature as editor and VFX, where I helped construct the psyche of man who is fascinated by death…
The way in which I will be constructing the edit will be around character emotions, desires and their views of one another in order to manipulate who audiences will be rooting for at the start, versus the end of the film. I am looking to reflect this through the structure of the rhythm and pacing, and in doing so, I will be using this as a tool to position audiences ‘with’ the Informant. The diagram on the right here shows how I plan on constructing the pace, and the one on the left is a mapping out of the relationship and dynamics between each character, placing the Warden at the top as he is in the most power. To further enhance this, I will be representing the Warden in an omnipotent way, and I aim to do this through precise cutting to draw attention to the most important and vital moments of the actor’s performance where this power is prominent.
Leading on from this, the film’s pacing will start and end slow to express the cyclical nature of a never-ending punishment. This rhythm will be disrupted at a revelation point where the pacing will momentarily accelerates; as a way of mirroring the desperation of the Informant as he tries to reach for the key to his shackles. This disruption acts as a waking call. A moment of truth amidst the brainwashing - before the cycle has unfortunately been reset. And finally, the pace will start to ease as the Informant’s panic starts to ease.
Through this we will be positioning the audience to see the Warden in a disapproving way, as well as now rooting for the Prisoner (and the Informant).
Reflection:
The pitch went well, but of course there is always room for improvement. The presenting part is something that I struggle with as its very nerve racking, but my diagrams definitely helped a lot. I wasn't sure that they would, because they were initially simple diagrams I made to help me make sense of my own ideas, but they were complimented and now I know that this approach is a good one to pursue for future pitching.
The main issue was consistency between the HODs. Due to time restrictions, and the group being busy with either other commitments and location scouts, we were not able to have a meeting at the time where everybody had brought together their ideas and started writing their pitching statements. We're resolving this, though, through an in-person meeting tomorrow evening which I look forward to. My spoken statement was fine, and it did correlate with what the other HODs were saying, but because I didn't know what bases would be covered (as the powerpoint was mostly image-based), so I had to skim through it and pick at parts that hadn't been discussed and kind of elaborate on it in the context of editing.
Nevertheless, it's just a little work that needs to be done in this regard. I'm excited to move forward with this project!
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