Project Pitch short film entry – Grape Expectations

With the Forest City Film Festival returning for its tenth year this weekend, the city is brimming with creative talent. The festival is bringing back Project Pitch, a pitch competition where filmmakers can submit pitches for a chance to win support and funding. In the short film category, winners will receive $17,000 in production funding. This year, London-based director Brad Spencer and screenwriter Mary Ann Dixon will be pitching their short, Grape Expectations.

In Grape Expectations we follow a recently terminated business executive, Claire, seeking to reinvent herself by purchasing a run-down winery.

I spoke with the creative duo on venturing into the film industry later in life, the importance of opportunities for emerging filmmakers and the joy of filming in London.

Emmanuel Akanbi: I read that you actually used to run a small boutique winery and have made another script about that previously. What inspired you to write about this kind of story again?

Mary Ann Dixon: So in this story, the protagonist is a middle-aged woman, and she’s always trying to prove herself and outperform everyone and just prove that she deserves to stay and keep her seat at the table. She ends up getting passed over yet again for a promotion, and she just kind of loses it. She purchases this rundown winery, I think, looking for something to control again. I think it’s a story that doesn’t get told a lot. A middle-aged woman kind of story — they just don’t get their voice heard as much, there’s not so much emphasis on their life and their stories. So I wanted to try and bring it to life, and fortunately got Brad on board. 

EA: What brought you on board, Brad?

Brad Spencer: I met Marianne a little over two years ago. We actually met at a Forest City Film Festival initiative.When I met her,she told me about this project that she was writing. And I really love the story. I thought it was super funny. Comedy is something that really resonates with me. I told her, “if you ever were looking for someone to direct the project or help bring it to fruition and bring a vision to it, I’d be very interested.” And she followed up about six months later. For a couple of years we’ve been trying to get the project off the ground.

I really connected with the project because like our protagonist, Claire, I decided to have a career shift later in life. I went back and took film school when I was 30 years old, which was probably one of the best decisions I ever made. I just think it’s never too late to go for what you want to and not be afraid to change tracks, even when you think you’re too old. So I really connected with Claire’s story in that aspect. I think it’ll be a lot of fun to shoot.

I just think that we need something funny and light to laugh at, but at its core, there is a nice emotional story to it that I think everybody in the city would connect with  — whether they’ve had a winery or they know someone that’s had a winery, all people have all struggled in life, and they all have come to that moment where you really need to believe in yourself and never fear that it’s too late to change your mind and do something different in your life and give it a really good try.

EA: You’re both based in London right now. Could you tell me a bit more about why you think it’s important to have productions set in London?

BS: After taking film school, I chose to remain in London, rather than moving to more of a film capital, like Toronto or Vancouver. I really like London, and I believe in this city. In just the last couple of years I would say there’s been a significant movement in regards to the film and the artistic community growing and thriving, but especially coming together. It really feels like it’s become a community, and people are just so supportive. That excites me, and that makes me want to stay in London. I’m very proud Londoner, and so I think anytime that we can create projects in the city that also take place in the city, like in this project our protagonist would come from a Toronto-type of location where it’s just very corporate, so many offices, very hustle and bustle, and they purchase a winery in a smaller town like London — so it could literally could take place in London.

It’s nice to just be able to create a project that would be 90 per cent created and produced in the city. We’re planning to hire 100 per cent London crew, working in the community and working in the film space in London. For the last couple years, I’ve really done my part as best as I can to curate connections and networks with other filmmakers in London so that when it comes time to do a project, I know all these different filmmakers and these different talented artists that are in the city that I could hire to be on the crew, which is awesome.

Film London has an initiative called Action London. They’re producing this year, over the course of six months, four short films, and I got asked to direct one of the short films which is really cool. They’re doing it in conjunction with a production company called KEME productions headed by a producer named Kristina Esposito, who I’ve worked with on a couple projects. And again, that’s a result of me working on projects in the city and connecting. It’s a great, great honor to be asked to direct one of them. 

EA: What kind of supports would you want to see for emerging filmmakers from the film community in London?

BS: I would say seeing more of the initiatives like I was talking about the Action London shorts would be a good entry point for an emerging filmmaker. Specifically as a new filmmaker, the industry can be very daunting. It’s a very complex beast. It can be very tough to carve out your spot. So creating more initiatives, like the one that Film London is doing, where they are creating these short films — fully London crew, one-day productions, short scripts — more initiatives like that will really help to create better opportunities for emerging filmmakers to get more experience and get their foot in the door and learn a little bit about what it takes to make a short film and go from there. 

MAD: Similar to what Brad was saying, initiatives that allow emerging talent to sort of get a project together. It is really daunting to get something made as a screenwriter. It’s even harder because you [just] write the screenplay. I’m not a filmmaker, so I can’t, on my own initiative, go and try and make a film. People that are filmmakers who write and direct their own, that’s great. But I don’t do that. I’m just the writer. I would have a hard time finding an opportunity to get my screenplay made into film, if it wasn’t for something like the Action London project that Film London put together because my screenplay got selected and we filmed last week, and it’s you know, it’ll be probably ready to be screened in the new year. Those kinds of opportunities, they’re very few and far between. So I was really fortunate to have that to get involved with. 

The Forest City Film Festival, they try really hard to put together workshops for writers, new filmmakers, all that sort of thing. There’s a lot of workshops that I’ll be attending over the next few days. 

EA: What are you most excited about for this year’s festival? 

MAD: Well, I’m definitely excited about pitching. These pitch opportunities again, very hard to get the opportunity to get your work in front of people that can actually do something to move a project along. So I’m very excited about that. I’ve signed up for lots of different workshops. Some are geared to writing. There’s some newer ones talking about what’s coming out on the horizon. 

BS: Definitely, the opportunity to pitch this short film is going to be awesome. Knock on wood, we get selected and get to make the film. But just the opportunity to pitch a film to judges, in and of itself, is an awesome opportunity to build that muscle of pitching. I think whether you’re in the film industry or any industry that you’re creating things, I think being able to pitch is a great skill to have. I’m looking forward to the conference in general, to get to as many of the chats and the workshops and the webinars as much as I can, just to learn as much as I can. They put on a great conference, and they bring in a lot of expertise, a lot of skilled people that know what they’re doing and can share a lot of knowledge. 

I’m also really looking forward to opening night, because I have two music videos in competition that I directed and shot. This is the second year in a row that I’ve had two music videos selected in competition. So I feel very grateful and very lucky, and that I’m on the right path, so to speak. I’m sure it’s going to be an awesome festival this year, as it always is.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.