A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Featuring:
Kenny Hotz, Spencer Rice, Samuel Z. Arkoff
Written by:
Kenny Hotz
Spencer Rice
Directed by:
Kenny Hotz, Spencer Rice
Release Date:
September 4, 1997
Original Title:
Pitch
Genres:
Comedy | Documentary
Production Companies:
Cinefornia
Hollywood or Bust Productions
Hotz-Rice Productions Inc.
Production Countries:
Canada
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 81
A Canadian documentary featuring two young filmmakers attending the Toronto Film Festival to pitch a film concept to various celebrities. Their film idea, titled "The Dawn", concerns a Mafia don who goes for a hernia operation but gets a sex change instead. During the 1996 Toronto Fest, they approach Roger Ebert, Norman Jewison (at a packed press conference), Eric Stoltz (leaving a limo), Al Pacino, and others without much success. On a roll, they leave Toronto for Hollywood, getting advice from Arthur Hiller and Neil Simon and finding an agent who expresses interest in their pitch.
Long time friends and aspiring Toronto-based filmmakers, Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice (who Kenny calls Spenny), have written a movie, a transgender mob comedy called "The Dawn", the script which they are trying to sell to get produced. They envision the movie to be a big budget Hollywood production with an all-star cast, rather than a low budget flick. Through cold calling, they quickly learn that they will need one piece of the movie in place - whether it be financing, or a major star or director signed on - before anyone else will really listen to them. More importantly, they need a reputable agent to do the leg work for them. They take the opportunity of the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival - a festival where many of the Hollywood elite attend - to pitch the movie to whomever will listen. Some people do give them advice, as well as advice concerning the making of this documentary, however they garner no solid leads. Thus, they move to the ultimate step in trying to get their movie made: go to Hollywood and knock on doors.
Click each video panel to show or hide.
Although TheMovieDB might provide a key to a YouTube video, there is no guarantee that the video might be present at YouTube.
Additional Sound Re-Recordist:
James Francey
Kevin White
Associate Producer:
Kate Brooks
Doug Dales
Jonathan Gross
David Laventhall
Camera Operator:
Sebastian Cluer
Dialogue Editor:
Jill Purdy
Director:
Spencer Rice
Kenny Hotz
Director of Photography:
Chris Romeike
Editor:
Daniel Sadler
Executive Producer:
Fitzroy E. Clarke
Kenny Hotz
Makeup Artist:
Kate Brooks
Other:
Sebastian Cluer
Producer:
Raymond Massey
Recording Supervision:
Steph Carrier
Sound Editor:
Stephen Barden
Sound Recordist:
Bissa Scekic
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.