How to Film a Pitch Video: The Super Alliance Style

The Super Alliance is an indie Vancouver comedy web series done by Awkward Alien Productions. It is about a goofy tv celebrity that gains super powers and discovers a world so much more amazing and dangerous than his life of stardom! And he meets people that need but don’t want him around. And why does he stick around? Maybe because he’s curious, pulled by unseen strings, wants to win his girlfriend back, or just bored with his success? The story is one we want to continue sharing.

For the first season playlist of The Super Alliance go here

To continue sharing this story we need to raise money and our preferred method, aside from dressing up as beggars, is crowd funding on Indiegogo. If you haven’t heard of this platform it is commonly used for crowdfunding, right beside kickstarter. The big difference between the two is that Indiegogo allows you to keep whatever money you happen to raise even if you don’t reach your goal. A great article that goes more in depth about the differences between the two options is here.

Very often a project seeking funding will put up a pitch video with their written project summary. Pitch videos give numerous advantages, mainly I think it increases your chances of gaining interest because people won’t have to read your whole project summary to understand what your project is about. The style of your pitch video is important, it also communicates the type of project you are trying to get off the ground. We went for comedy because its similar to our show’s theme. Plus comedy sells and people like to laugh!
(For laughter watch the behind the scenes footage below).

Bruce and I test out our new superhero outfits. We didn’t realize till later that we were filming in front of a dance studio… they probably had some things to say about our technique. And I don’t think they were good things.

When writing a pitch video script make sure it is short and to the point. Many projects that ramble on will lose the viewers interest. But in addition to keeping it short and sweet you want to tell a good story. Many projects will tell a good story regardless of how long it takes because audiences will give their time to a video if it seems worth it. If you have loads of great things to say I suggest you only share the important things. Those cool details you really want to share can be shared in your written summary.  A great blog from Indiegogo gives 6 Tips for a good Pitch Video. I found this pretty awesome.

Once you have that figured out the hardest part is yet to come: scheduling. We only have 2-3 actors on set at one time for our pitch video and at least three people on crew. This is at least 5 people on set. It may not sound like much but we are all very busy trying to make a living in this beautiful, yet expensive, city. So to prepare for filming I suggest you all decide awhile in advance on your film date and book it off.

As for how long you might be filming, that is largely dependant on how many different camera angles you want to film. We spent three different days filming 8 pages of script. On the first day we had two and a half pages of material but three different angles to cover and we spent about 3 hours filming that. Thankfully that was indoors and we didn’t have any difficult outside noises to deal with. But most of our time was spent working the lighting and moving furniture for optimal visuals. Our indoor set looked something like this:

 

When we filmed outdoors it was fairly quick. We got really lucky with weather conditions and traffic was hardly audible. Took us about two hours for a page and 5 angles. There wasn’t a whole lot to do with lighting, either we were in the sun or not… that’s indie film making for ya!

For our third and final day we planned to wrap things up. Unfortunately we had scheduling complications and had to postpone the shoot. So we planned for a week later. A day before the final shoot I received an audition callback that was timed right in the middle of our shoot time… callbacks aren’t something you can reschedule. I rushed off to the audition and waited. When I finally left the casting agency an hour later than expected, I grabbed a quick cab back to set. I share this obstacle with you because it is an example of how unpredictable this industry can be and you need to be open minded and flexible enough to roll with the punches. While being dedicated to your vision.

 

A picture of Marco, our director of photography, looking excited.

Aside from having the release date of our video pushed back a week and scheduling challenges everything went smoothly. We were able to bring you a fun and interesting pitch video.

If you are interested in supporting our show please go to our donations page here. Donate, receive a sweet perk, and share our show with you friends!

As a reward, here is a picture of Niv, the show’s creator, on his knees holding a boom mic looking two feet shorter than he actually is. Jon’s bum as a point of height comparison.

 

What kind of experiences have you had as an indie film maker? What have you learned when filming a pitch video?