Idea 3 - Tom Maughan

‘Journey’ Pitch
The premise of the film I am pitching is a film about failing filmmakers. I would take a mockumentary, fly on the wall approach to filming our fictional filmmakers, while, filming their film with the intention of making it very unprofessional, to the extent that it would make an audience cringe, but, most importantly; laugh.
The narrative of the film follows our protagonist, a young, up and coming director or at least he thinks so. Having just finished his A-Levels, and proudly having gained a high B grade, our protagonist decides it’s time that he makes his first feature length film. The plot unravels with the plot of protagonist’s ‘epic’ debut being described, entailing a warrior from the past being frozen by a magical shaman, ready for when he will be needed to save the world in the distant future (turning out that the world is endangered by an alien, giant, telepathic space-dog). From here the narrative becomes about the complications of our characters when making their film, this is where a lot of humour can be created in the incompetence of our fictional filmmakers. The conclusion of the film will be the protagonist reading a kind rejection letter from a big film studio and the protagonist pitching his next film.
As I mentioned before, this would be filmed in two parts, the real film and the fictional film. The real film would be like a fly on the wall documentary, following the characters in their struggle to create their own film. The fictional film would be shot very unprofessional, giving a definitive difference between what we have filmed and what our characters have filmed. In terms of props and costumes for the fictional film, the worse they are, the more humorous the scenes can become.
The aim is to make the fictional film as over the top as possible, so when it is contrasted with scenes with our protagonist talking to his crew as if he is already a top director we create a great deal of irony. A great influence for the protagonist would be the character of David Brent from Ricky Gervais’ and Stephen Merchant’s ‘The Office’. I don’t want the character to be unlikeable, I want him to be mocked but also sympathised due his extreme disillusions about himself.
In terms of style for the films, a lot of influence can be taken from Michel Gondry’s ‘Be Kind Rewind’ and the ‘Sweded films’ within it, the use of everyday items to create very ambitious sequences is something that I would look to do, also. However, this would be with the loss of the style that Gondry so creatively produces, so the fictional film will become even more laughable.
I feel the fact that this idea opens for two different styles of comedy, and it is really two films rather than one, it means that is accessible to an array of audiences. I think the idea of a film going completely wrong can be quite refreshing, and the realism of the characters and their disillusions will work because people can relate to people they know.