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Here's The Pitch: Deal Of The Month
Vancouver International
Film Festival Television Trade Forum
29th September 2002
The final two pitches, Deal Of The Month and The
Mouse That Roars highlighted increasing concern about the environment.
George Orr pitched a documentary about Trail, "the ugliest town" in "Beautiful
British Columbia". The provincial economy of BC, of which Vancouver is
the biggest city, grew historically by extracting resources - forestry
and mining. That is slowly changing and with it the related social and
health issues that occur with heavy industry. But Trail, Orr argued, a
town built around a lead smelter, is "the last of its kind", "a dinosaur",
a place where "the pay is good but eventually you die of lead poisoning".
Orr, whose background is in journalism, argued that little had been reported
on the high incidence of thallium-poisoning (lead-related poisoning) and
other misdemeanours. He stressed that the industry, the union and the
community were complicit in allowing deadly poisons to be emitted into
generation after generation of local people and the environment at large.
He also related how one of his key subjects had agreed with the company
to be sterilised before taking employment so that she wouldn’t have children
while on the job. She was laid off a month after her operation.
The story is about the "Erin Brockovich of BC", now 50 years old, fighting
back against wrong-doing and indifference. The treatment was not fleshed
out in great depth, and seemed at an early stage in development.
"I’m aghast at this story," said Jones, echoing the shocked reaction of
the audience. He wanted to know what characters would be involved. Klein
liked the "angry pitch" but said the legal issues made him nervous. "I
would need plenty of evidence". Access to microfiches and files that the
company used to view the employees would be essential. He also asked who
is guilty, and what the target was.
To his credit, Orr stuck to his guns saying that the doc was about the
relationship between the town and the industry. "It’s a bit like a dysfunctional
family that you kind of bend into shape to keep the family together."
McCarthy raised another pertinent and difficult issue: facing the consequences
of such a documentary. "If you created a laser of attention on this company
and it had to close down, how would you feel?" Orr seemed to waiver at
first, but suggested that anything that encouraged the company to clean
up its act would be good. The company was rich enough to fix things at
Trail. The question remains, would it clean up its act or abandon Trail
altogether? In fact, many questions remained at the end of this pitch
- particularly legality issues - which undermined the strength of the
pitch.
Read on - project smiles
at that sinking feeling
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