Story Pitches and Dealing with Mixed Feelings

On November 7th, my Pre-Production for Story class pitched the ideas we were developing to the rest of our class as well as our professors. This was the time to show just how much work we had all put in and convince everyone our stories were worth investing their time into.

It took a lot of effort to be in front of the class, sharing something that I had put so much work into, that may not even make it further than the pitch that day. That created a lot of anxiety and tension going into it. Though my group had worked on three stories, that we have been calling Mothman, Fighter Kites, and Alienation, the one I was most passionate about was Alienation, though I knew it wasn't the most popular amongst everyone else.

That day, I had to remind myself to keep breathing to keep the anxiety manageable. Sure, some anxiety can even be motivating, but too much will stop your momentum in its tracks and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. I like to use something called 4-7-8 breathing, which activates your parasympathetic nervous system and helps to balance melatonin and cortisol in times of stress. I breathe in for a count of four, hold the breath for seven, and then breathe out for eight. There are many variations of this, though the most important thing is that the exhale is longer than the inhale.

Ultimately, the pitch went really well! We had engaging presentations and it seemed like people were really like the stories myself and my teammates had put so much work into. The biggest parts I had worked on were parts of the animatic for Alienation, though I also helped with the formatting of the other presentations as well.

[Video Description: A sketchy animatic, where a Deaf guy shows his phone to a barista to give his order. She refuses to acknowledge him, and he walks away to recover in the bathroom, where he takes a couple breaths as he adjusts his hearing aids. He walks out, and a bell is shown ringing. End VD]

[Video Description: A sketchy animatic of a Deaf character exiting a room into a strange hallway. He starts to investigate when he feels the echoes of something behind him. A chase scene ensues, represented by a frame that says "Insert chase scene." He sees a door, like a light at the end of the tunnel, and bursts through to find and alien cafe. End VD]

There's 3 frames in the middle that my teammate did, just after the "chase scene," the rest were done by me.

After the pitches, everyone was on the edge of their seats for the next couple days waiting for the announcements of what groups we would be in, and which stories had been chosen for our thesis films. When the announcement finally came, I felt a lot of excitement, but mixed with a lot of disappointment. Though my second choice, my groups' story Fighter Kites, made it through and I was assigned to that group, Alienation was not picked.

It's hard to accept that something you care about ultimately didn't make the cut, and that not enough people were interested enough in it to have a full group that wanted to work on it. However, I can always come back to that idea in the future and try to improve on what's there now. There's no use dwelling on things that are outside of my control, and the disappointment doesn't negate the excitement of working on Fighter Kites for the thesis film.

Once I'd let myself sit with the disappointment for a little while and process, I'm actually really excited to be working on Fighter Kites! I'm passionate about the idea and the message the story wants to tell, and I can't wait to see where it will go as my teammates and I continue to work on it and improve it over the next couple of semesters.