So over the last week Anomalous Material (a really awesome blog) had this great event where we all participated in The Hollywood Fantasy Draft (I’ll let you figure it out).  It was a blast.  I spent ten rounds picking and choosing who would fit a film that I’d love to see one day.  However, it’s time for me to take that film that I see everytime I close my eyes and explain it to everyone else on paper.  This is the final stage of the event – The Pitch.

So according to Anomalous Material’s rules my pitch should include the following:

• You should immediately develop the basic idea, the logline for your movie: The logline is one or two sentence that summarize the concept of your movie. For example: “Are you interested in a story about a man who lives in the Statue of Liberty?” (A real and successful logline)
• You should have a firm grasp of your main characters and their roles in the story
• You should be able to explain why so and so is going to play so and so
• You should begin to develop some basic outline or treatment for your story

So here goes… step by step.

The Logline

“It’s a movie where Evan, a psycho depressive girl, who’s just broken out of her hospital meets Andrew, an obsessive technology geek who thinks that he’s alone in the world because none of his business ideas ever work, and falls in love from the first time their eyes meet.  Yes it’s another indie romantic comedy, but it’s also a musical written and directed by Joss Whedon.”

The Characters

	Andrew Garfield is the young man who’s working in a mind numbing programming job with a big named technology corporation.  He has seemingly good thoughts everyday for how to make money but they always seem to fail because he never allows them to become full blown ideas.
	Donald Glover is Andrew’s best friend since College and he also happens to work with Andrew at this big named technology corporation as a sales representative.  Donald’s character is the people savvy individual who is always making quick gags at the stupid things that Andrew says and Andrew never quite gets the joke but doesn’t care.
	Oliver Platt will play Andrew’s father who is married to Olivia Williams. Platt is an alcoholic who never seems to pay his son any mind.  After years of working in a car factory, that is no longer alive, he sees his sons work and dreams as silly and not worth much.
	Olivia Williams is the overly loving mother that Andrew needed throughout his childhood since his dad was always out late drinking.  She’s a bit too constricting at times, which is why he decided to be on his own so early in life (having moved out on his own at the age of 18).  She’s also an enthusiastic horticulturalist.
	Evan Rachel Wood, after watching a homeless man kills himself, has a nervous breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric hospital.  After having been diagnosed with a horrible depression she’s then forced to have been kept in the hospital against her will.  She then breaks out and meets Andrew in the middle of the night after escaping the hospital.  Her mental issues go past the regular breakdown and when she has conversations with everyone she sees everyone singing and dancing as if everyone’s in a Broadway musical.
	Felicia Day is Evan’s friend since they were five-years-old and Evan’s family moved into the house beside her.  She’s the likeable quiet girl who believes that everyone wants to do well.
	Neil Patrick Harris is Felicia’s husband who sleeps around.  He’s a famed neurologist who’s completed numerous ‘impossible’ surgeries.  Towards the end of the second act his wife guilts him into fixing Evan’s head and her problem after she finds out about his infidelities.
	Max Records is Neil and Felicia’s 11-year-old son.  He’s is a cool scheming child that’s always getting into trouble at school but is also a brilliant con man (I wonder where I got this from?) and a believer in people who do what they are.
	Sharto Copley plays the role of the Greg.  Greg is a homeless man who roams around the park that is opposite building that Andrew works in.  Greg and Andrew have become friends of sorts and Andrew tends to spend his lunch hour outside in the park and he eats with Greg every afternoon.  Greg claims to be a famed writer who got cleaned out by his wife but Andrew never seems to find any confirmation of this story.  Andrew and Donald think that the man is a small level of crazy, but harmless.  Greg will have a ridiculously large beard, and play the role of the wise man who gives Andrew advice through the film.

The Outline

Notes: This is a basic outline and it deals with the main plotline with 1/2 extra side threads that I haven’t fully thought out.  I want this movie because I love rom/com musicals and I can’t wait to see more Joss Whedon musicals.  If that’s what you want you may think the plot below is weak, but with Joss Whedon is attached the couple action-like scenes that I have planned and the musical side will be awesome.  I also would like to claim that with Whedon helming the film I expect to see Nathan Fillion, Anthony Head, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alan Tudyk all make a cameo just for fun in the film.

Themes:

1. Love unconditionally: Through the characters of Felicia and Neil we see how no matter how strange things can get in a relationship when you are in love you try to make it work and you love someone unconditionally.  I’m not condoning infidelity, but in the case of Neil we (as well as Felicia) see that this characteristic isn’t something that came about just because she was there, it’s something that was always embedded in his character and it’s not anything about her, which is why in the end she begins to understand and starts to play into it with the relationship.
2. Intelligence out of school: With the character of Max who’s so much more mature than his age and is someone who understands people a lot more than you would expect someone of his age.  With him we see how a school book isn’t the only way to be smart.  We also see this in the character of Donald who actually flunked out of school which is why he’s a sales rep rather than a techie like Andrew.
3. Believing in yourself: With Andrew constantly doubting his ideas and never seeing his concepts to their full potential he never seems to get them right and why he never succeeds. 

Prologue: Here we see Evan have her mental breakdown after seeing this homeless man kill himself and being put into the psychiatric hospital.

Act One: We open with getting to know Andrew at work and his life, including where his friend Donald fits into his life.  We see a cool actiony scene where Evan breaks out of the hospital cut together with Andrew on his way home from work and it eventually hits the point where they cross paths and immediately ‘fall in love’ <insert song>. During the rest of this act Andrew spends his time finding out who Evan is and getting to know her and getting close to her.  Evan’s friend, Felicia, spends her time trying to help her friend after knowing she should get her back to the hospital.  The act ends with Evan and Andrew actually starting to be in a relationship.

Act Two: We open with Andrew finally finding out about all of Evan’s mental issues.  He begins to start pushing for her to go to doctors, who she doesn’t trust anymore after her experience at the hospital, to try and fix this.  With all characters starting to intermingle we see things like Neil start talking to Andrew and Donald about his conquests and things like his willingness to share his playbook of how nail chicks and not get caught by the misses. We see things like Donald and Neil start to be best of friends and starting to kick it off, and Max and Andrew doing good together after Max tries to con him into doing something stupid.

Act Three: We open with Neil talk about all the risks of what he has to do to fix Evan.  After a long argument Evan goes out and doesn’t come back.  We then deal with a sequence where the police and everyone go out to find her.  The movie ends with Evan being found and Andrew and Evan ending in love.  She makes a comment about how horrible a singer she thought Andrew was.

Epilogue: Neil and Felicia resolve their issues with Neil’s infidelity and they start looking for extra partners and we see Donald using Neil’s plays in a bar and all.

So I guess the final question is would you like to see this movie?