$1000 Awarded to Pitch It Winner

Jacob Stuart, Jeremey Gingrich and Alvaro Leite

A film pitch is a basically a sales pitch for a film, tv show or other creative project.  Depending on whom you are pitching to and what the purpose of the film pitch is, your pitch may be longer or shorter.  A film pitch can range from a one sentence description of your project to a longer telling that should include the main elements of the story, the basic premise, plot points, the main characters, time period, setting and locations. 

Last night the 7th Annual Eichelberger FilmFestival kicked off at the Dayton Convention Center with our annual Pitch It!  The stories ranged from a psychotherapist’s culture shock in Beijing, to a disgraced conservative pundit returning to his hometown to mend relationships and a horror/fantasy about a girl who uses her creativity and newfound ability to ‘phase’ through colors to survive attacks from the malevolent entity that caused the disappearance of her dad and death of her mom.

The judges: Alvoro Leite, a filmmaker and screenwriter, who attended film school at Wright State University where he got hisBFA in Motion Pictures Production and currently a teacher at Stivers School for the Arts and  Jacob N. Stuart, an award-winning and represented screenwriter. He has had OVER 15 scripts optioned and/or produced to screen, airing in OVER 7 different countries. Jacob is the Founder of Screenwriting Staffing.

In a FilmDayton tradition, each contestant had 2 minutes to “pitch” their idea and then judges asked questions eliciting further details on plot, character development, target audiences and more.  After careful consideration the winning pitch was selected:

“Dean and Max, late 20’s best friends since college, are about to embark on the Never Ending Tour – Bob Dylan’s touring frenzy from the year 2000 – on a road trip through the Western United States (8 shows, 6 states in 10 days), meeting the colorful characters you’re bound to meet on such a tour, as they also try to cope with Dean’s impending divorce of his wife of 6 years and the recent death of Max’s father.

Beavercreek filmmaker Jeremey Gingrich was awarded $1000 to kickstart his film into production. And the FilmDayton festival was official underway, with 3 screenings last night at The Neon.  The fest continues with documentaries, shorts, features at The Neon and workshops today and Sunday at ThinkTV.  For the full scheudle, please visit FilmDayton’s website.