Woman to pitch movie idea at film festival
Plans to tell ‘story of the storyteller’
The Meadville Tribune
Local independent filmmaker Heather Reichel’s approach to pitching an idea for a television show or movie is simple.
“It’s go big or go home,” she said of presenting her concept to a panel of prominent judges later this week.
Ms. Reichel, of Meadville, is among 20 contestants selected to take part in Pitchfest at the 11th annual GI Film Festival in Washington, D.C. The festival was founded in 2006 by U.S. Army veteran Laura Law-Millett and her husband Brandon Millett. The festival honors the stories of American veterans past and present through film, television and live special events.
It all came together quickly, with Ms. Reichel learning about the festival two months ago.
“I filled out an online form and wrote a paragraph describing my concept,” she said. “It was free, so I thought why not take a chance?”
She didn’t hold out much hope since she assumed there would be numerous entries and only the top 20 concepts are chosen to be pitched to the judges.
Ms. Reichel, the director and producer of Charles Rudler’s biography “New Boots,” will have just two minutes to sell the idea of a TV series or movie to a panel of agents, producers, managers and screenwriters on Friday. One of those panelists is actor Judd Nelson.
“I saw all his films in the 1980s,” Ms. Reichel said. Ms. Nelson is a screenwriter/ actor who appeared in classics such as “The Breakfast Club” and “St. Elmo’s Fire,” and the TV series “Suddenly Susan.”
Ms. Reichel’s idea is based on the notion of “who tells the story of the storyteller,” she said.
Ms. Reichel works independently, capturing images and video of events to assist with stories. A great deal of her stringer work is covering emergency situations — such as vehicle crashes and structure fires — for The Meadville Tribune and WJET-TV/ WFXP-TV.
She also is a former emergency medical technician, giving her an understanding of fire and crash scenes.
Her concept is based on the life of a stringer. She described that life via a video on her cell phone.
The video depicts an emergency radio call awakening a man in the middle of the night. The man struggles to get dressed and grabs a camera as he heads out to capture images of some catastrophe. The man arrives at the scene in nasty weather, as he and others like him try to capture a moment that tells a story.
One of those “others” caught in Ms. Reichel’s video is Doug Sekerski, who has been a volunteer firefighter with Cochranton Volunteer Fire Department for 30 years.
“I’ve seen just about everything,” Mr. Sekerski said of being a firefighter.
Like Ms. Reichel, he captures images of some of that “everything” for others to see.
“A lot of the images that we capture are not of pleasant things,” Mr. Sekerski said. “It can be chaos. It’s hard stuff.”
Despite the unpleasantness of a disaster, Mr. Sekerski feels it’s important to capture the images that tell the storyof that moment in time.
“Destruction is unfortunate, but you’re never going to have that image again,” he said. “Not many people get to see those images.”
As an example, Mr. Sekerski cited the fire that destroyed the 132-year-old Riverside Inn in Cambridge Springs on May 2.
“It was a terrible thing, but it was a moment in history that can’t be told without photos,” he said.
Ms. Reichel admits to having pre-pitch nerves.
“I’m a visual storyteller,” she said. “I have to rely solely on verbal skills to pitch the concept. It’s going to be hard to get something you believe in across to the judges in just two minutes.”
The top three finalists will pitch live during an awards ceremony on Sunday. Ms. Reichel has no idea what the winning prize package is.
Whether “the story of the storyteller” earns Ms, Reichel the prize package, she’s excited for the opportunity just to be in D.C. with other filmmakers.
“It’s a chance to make connections in the film industry,” she said. “It’s a big ice-breaker.”