In less than three weeks Type Cast is set to air at the Tribeca Film Institute’s Our City, My Story showcase, and while I feel the excitement in the Urban Arts offices I also see a sense of accomplishment among the members of the MediaLab Team. Today was all about preparing for the event, and while I always knew my MediaLab peers were capable of being proficient, I was really impressed with the leadership skills everybody demonstrated.

 

Our producers worked on making phone calls to other MediaLabbers who were not able to make it to class this week. We confirmed that all filmmakers had turned in their permission slips and booked each one to represent at an afternoon or evening screening.  We are not playing games and are determined to see our documentary on the big screen!

 

 

Every filmmaker also prepared his or her “elevator pitch.”  An elevator pitch is a speech one makes in a short amount of time, usually 30 seconds, during which one shares his or her ideas with a superior, in our case, the producers at Tribeca.  Picture yourself stepping into an elevator on the first floor to find your boss coincidentally on his way to the 40th floor.  You have a short amount of time—the length of the ride—to pitch him your idea.  We have been practicing different ways to make those 30 seconds count.  During our role play, my two personalities were “Roberta De Niro” and “Aunt Jemima Jolie.”

 

 

We hope to see you on April 29th at the Tribeca Film Institute, where hopefully you will get to see a preview of our elevator pitches!