1st Pitch – Writers’ Pitch and Affliction Story Development
Final Year Project ResearchThe Writers’ Pitch
We started our final year at university (!), and those who had attended screenwriting workshops the previous semester in the third year and had proposed scripts for the graduate films pitched first. I had always intended to write and direct in my final year of university, but along the way, I realised this was not the best choice for me or the project.
The Initial Idea of Affliction – Idea Development
Affliction is a project close to my heart as it began from my experience of living with a chronic illness and how society treats the chronically ill but with a specific focus on young, chronically ill women. The idea had changed significantly from its original conception – a young couple struggling to understand one another and how to manage chronic illness in a relationship when only one person is affected.
The idea told through this story of a couple struggling to reconcile differences and understand each other was overplayed and seemed too obvious and on the nose. I began to search for other ways to convey the feelings I had towards my chronic illness and how society treats sick women, and I found it in the Scottish witch trials.
The Scottish witch trials infamously persecuted mainly women who did not adhere to societal standards and expectations for women in the 16th to 18th centuries. Women were tortured and executed for their femininity, reproductive bodies, and sexuality if it did not serve the purpose of the patriarchal order.
Any woman who acted abnormally risked the accusation of witchcraft and had her perception of events and her story denied. A key theme that links my original idea and the witchcraft-oriented world of Affliction is medical misogyny. Medical misogyny is defined as “sexism or gender bias in medicine, medical practices, communication, consent, and medical diagnosis”. This is something I’ve experienced throughout my life with Crohn’s disease and feel strongly about, so naturally, I wanted to create a graduate film about it.
My Pitch for Affliction
I did not have any crew attached to the project during the first pitch, so I pitched to find HODs who were also interested in and passionate about the story of Affliction.
Affliction – Initial Outline
This pitch document was made available on Moodle at the end of the second semester of third year to allow the cohort to overview the proposed graduate film ideas. A lot of the ideas from the synopsis are no longer in the story, but created the foundation for the story to be built on.
Affliction – Writers’ Pitch Document
Whilst I am no longer the writer for Affliction, I spent significant effort, energy, and time developing the foundations of the characters, story, and plot.
The initial work I did as the screenwriter for Affliction has set me up well to direct the film, as I am familiar with the inspirations behind the story and characters and understand exactly who the target audience is and what themes I wish to convey.
Pitch Feedback
I was nervous about pitching my graduate film idea because it was so personal to me. I hadn’t discussed the project widely with my coursemates except those in my screenwriting seminar group. Thankfully, I had scripted a detailed pitch that covered genre, character, plot, story, and themes.
My main feedback was regarding the historical element of Affliction, which required significant research to ensure historical accuracy. At this point in the pitching process, I had yet to thoroughly research the history of the Scottish witch trials and the minutiae of the period. Kate, the screenwriting tutor, had brought this up in one of our last sessions before the summer, so I knew this was my next point of focus for the idea.
Below are mood-boards to show the visual inspiration for Affliction.
Next Steps for Affliction
Afterwards, I discussed my pitch with several coursemates who had expressed interest in the project and began to form a crew in anticipation of the next pitch in a few weeks.
During this time, I decided to work with Mark-Antony as a screenwriter and focus on directing, as this was my first choice for roles in my fourth year. Instead of writing and directing and potentially not excelling at both and spreading myself too thin, I opted to work with Mark-Antony as he’s an experienced screenwriter with previous scripts in similar genres to Affliction.
Niamh joined as HOD for sound, Nikola for production design, and eventually, Molly joined as the editor for the project. Each crew member was interested in the subject matter of Affliction and had the creative skillset to achieve our shared vision for the film.