Inside Tribeca All Access - Beyond the Mat

Ground Zero Gyro: East Vs. West Pitch

Last night I was restless and I decided to go explore with our producer Kase... We went looking for some food. I couldn't find a taco truck. See what happens when you let a Chicano from East LA out at night... he goes looking for King Taco... but interestingly enough... we were wandering around aimlessly and happened upon Ground Zero.

It was so quit and surreal at that time of night. We bought two Gyros from a vendor who seemed to be the only guy on the streets for miles... he was right in front of Ground Zero.. It was kinda weird finding him out there. The food was good. I'm bringing this up today because two things happened today that reconnected me to the Gyros at Ground Zero.

In the morning we were headed to our orientation and we ended up at Ground Zero again. When I realized it we were in the the exact location that I have only seen in a CGI animation. Yup.. It was interesting because I have a film coming out and it's is centered around 9/11 and two soldiers. We have a ground zero scene that it completely blue screened and remade as a computer Generated graphic. Today we ended up at the exact location that we remade in the film... Once again, it was surreal.. I couldn't believe I was there... in real life.. at the exact latitude and longitude we re-created!

Once we arrived at the orientation the day went by swiftly... It was great to be in a room of so many talented filmmakers. One interesting thing happened that put things into perspective for me... I was interviewed by Univision .. I pulled in Erik, our writer and he began pitching the project to the camera. He did a great job... I was so excited because it flowed. Right in the middle of his interview I realized that he was sharing it with millions of viewers.. millions of Latino viewers.. Thats when it hit me.. We are here representing Latinos in the film community... We have the support of that community.. It's evident in the emails I have been receiving.. Thank you all for watching the broadcast and emailing.. thanks to the friends back home that sent emails in response to some of the press we have been getting.. It truly inspires me to know that we are here with a program designed to help us under-represented filmmakers get through the threshold and into success... It was great to see Edwin Pagan and Bienvenida "Beni" Matias also in the All Access program. Especially because we are all members of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP). They are both very active and I hold them in high regard. Wow... today I realized that things are stirring.. and i'm in the company of some great Latino filmmakers from mi gente... We're rockin it...

We all begin our pitches tomorrow.. It was awesome getting feedback from producers as we practiced our pitches today.. The thing that kept coming up as we pitched and made our assessments is that there is a way to pitch in LA and there is a way to pitch in New York.. I didn't even know it existed.. but it does.. So here is my brief explanation for you filmmakers...

LA Pitch:
- Use a logline such as "Two high school wrestlers put their friendship on the line to win at all cost."
- Compare two films... "It's Rocky meets Vsion Quest"
- Be animated

New York Pitch:
- Just tell the story.. they want to get hooked in by the characters and their struggle. They also want to hear it in ten beats or so... like an overview.

It was interesting because all day long we had great input but we were directed to approach our pitch at different angles depending on who we were speaking to. After we walked away from our individual meetings we would say.. "That makes sense.. but the other producer said to do it the other way.." and both made sense.. We finally realized that they were both right.. depending on which coast they operate from.. It was pretty interesting and fun to explore it all. Congrats to Erik and Van for pitching, taking direction and making a touch down... tomorrow we'll make more adjustments.. Teresa, one of our producers will chime in with some supporting info.. Kase, our producer will get our beats in line...

In the end we'll score big... after we decide which coast were pitching to..

Tonight I headed out with Van to get a bite to eat... as it tuns out we found our way to ground Zero by accident... Van had never been. He was very moved by the experience as he looked at the pictures on the wall. We also saw this very old cemetery that is directly across the street from GZ. It is the oldest and scariest looking cemitary I have ever seen. It truly looked like a scene from "A nightmare before Christmas" or some other fabricated haunted graveyard.. The spooky part is that it is hundreds of years old and survived the attacks on September 11. You really need to stop and take a look at this.. it really is something.

We ended up having some pretty deep conversation about friendship, September 11, the war and life... all while we walked on the cobblestone alleyways trying to find our way back... It truly was a moment to remember... I thank Van for sharing that with me... It seemed like a movie scene...

Oh... and about the Gyros and Ground Zero... once again... we found our buddy selling Gyros.. When I approached him he remembered me.. I told him that Kase posted his picture on the World Wide Web.. that made him very happy... He smiled and gave us a free Gyro and Soda...

Labels: film, independent film, september 11, tribeca film festival, wrestling movie

posted by Coach Priest @ 1:03 AM