I went to hear Ted Tremper speak at DePaul last week. Ted is a filmmaker who has started to gain attention lately with his series “Breakups” and “Shrink”. “Shrink” won the 2012 New York Television Festival Awards for Best Comedy Pilot and the NYTVF Critic’s Award. “Breakups” won the Vimeo Best Original Series award, and he recently just got back from Switzerland where he was filming a version of “Breakups”. I’ve heard a lot of artists and filmmakers come in and speak to students before, but no one has been as honest and candid as Ted. He told us the full story of nearly everything he has done in his career up until this point, including all the pitfalls that came his way trying to reach where he is. His work is a perfect example of how content can shine through and really make a piece great. He filmed all of his pilot episodes himself with one camera, and did every other role as well all the way through editing. Despite this lack of production value his work has won some prestigious awards, and even beat out many other competitors with large budgets. As an independent filmmaker this is great to hear since I subscribe to the school of thought that believes you do not need any fancy equipment or budget to make something great that people enjoy.
One of the main points he talked about was pitching projects to get funding or picked up to get created into a full series. There is a full art that goes into making a pitch for a project, and the pitch itself is a show you put on for the people in the room. As one who will have to pitch many projects over my career this was invaluable information to learn. I followed up with him after the event over email and he gave me some really great critiques for my current projects.
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