Pitch Sheet (Third Draft)

Each week, I've been re-writing my pre-production pitch, you can follow each of the revisions over on Google Documents but here is the very latest paragraph I wrote for my idea. Will probably do a couple of more rewrites from here on.

Our perspective is shaky, to the point where it is hard to tell exactly what is going on, we see a brief shot of the cameraman's feet (his shoes should appear unkept), then the sky and a cat shaped house that is out of focus. The microphone is picking up wind from each direction. We hear our cameraman, his voice sounds as if he is a blogger, likely unshaven (we won't see his face) "Mic check! testing...so here it is, the house of the man who created the viral sensation, Piano Kitty, I'm not quite sure what to expect, the last time he told me to get off his lawn...". The camera style should be in the set-up as if he was a vlogger at some point but then got hired by a local news station.

Rough cut, arm knocking on door with some hesitation at first and then going full force, knocks on a cat shaped door knocker. Cameraman exclaims "Hi, it's Bill from News 8, can you let me in?" we then here a muffled "it's unlocked" reply coming from the inside. Door opens, we see our camera pan over on some objects on the walls, mostly cat shaped clocks and posters. We see a boyish looking man sitting alone at an unkept dinner table facing the camera man, wears Pink Floyd boxers, cat shaped slippers and generally gives of the appearance that he has been wearing the same clothing for days, empty cans of tuna and cereal boxes align the table. The man nervously states "sorry about the mess, would I be able to interest you in some coffee...tuna...Fruit Loops" (as he picks up and places down an upturned box, cameraman states "I'm fine").

The handheld camera style ends and we have a completely straight documentary interview shot of our main character. Voice over asks "so tell me, where did the idea for Piano Kitty come from?". We hear a showed down string parody arrangement of the Keyboard Cat melody as our character begins to explain his motivation. "The video was a culmination of a six year creative drought, after college, all my ideas for conceptual pieces fell flat, either in scope, budget, or just...didn't work out". While this voice-over plays we see a shot of the character, also in the same washed out clothing carefully putting a clothespin on a larger clothespin shaped structure (close-up, out of focus) and then we see a medium shot of the sculpture collapsing, main character throws his arms up and it cuts right before he swears.

The camera then goes back to the interview, our main character seems a bit more spirited now. "But the main inspiration came when I was browsing CraigsList looking for some really strong wood glue, I couldn't get my eyes off this orange tabby cat and that's when it hit me, my work was COMPLETE, so then I ordered it, supersaver". The camera then cuts to our character waiting by the mailbox "and then followed the longest 6-8 business days in my life", when he states this we see jump cuts of him sorting through bills and card advertisements. We then see a cut of him receiving a cat shaped package, he gets excited and opens it, but then it turns out to be a piñata, he throws it on the ground and candy then comes out. With each cut, empty cans of tuna start to stack up. Eventually, he opens an unassuming looking cardboard box with holes on the top and the cat jumps out of the box, screaming attacking his face. We see packaging peanuts fall out with the cat.

We see a shot of him fitting a T-shirt on the cat and moving a piano into place "it said Vivian on her collar, I was Da Vinci and she was my Mona Lisa". We now see a grainy YouTube video of an irritated looking cat in a t-shirt playing a piano voice-over states "it said everything I wanted to say about life, how we are cogs in the inner working of a machine fighting against our ferocious instincts dressed in a blue shirt, forced to perform a piano song in front of the world".

We see a shot of our main character by a pile of merchandise, "the video was an instant hit receiving over 9 million views in the first month and I received thousands of T-shirts, love letters, posters and keyboards in the mail since. While none of my other videos were able to catch a similar momentum" we now see other blurry YouTube clips of Vivian playing a saxophone, re-enacting a scene from The Matrix, etc. "I have created my life's masterpiece".

We see the man in a chair twiddling his thumbs as the interviewer asks one last question "so, what's next for our musically inclined feline?", our main character then hesitates for a long while "well, I received an offer from the SoBe beverage company to use my cat's likeness in a new ad campaign but..." camera then turns dark as we see the cat, sick in bed "I don't think that's going to happen, you see, Vivian's been very sick for the past week and I have serious doubts that she is going to make it to next week". The camera man then asks "you know, my sister's a veterinarian, maybe it might be a good for you to take her there"...there is a long drawn out pause "will she put her down?" - "likely but listen, I've had this great idea for an experimental film over the past four years and I've been looking for someone to work with..." both the camera man and the guy interviewed exchange glances (implied), the man then smiles a bit with a tinge of sadness, it then fades to black.