[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent’s Phone Pitch

Leading with a High Concept:

Hi, I’m Gill, and I’m wondering if I could run a quick concept by you.

Pause for permission.

I have the true story of a princess who stares down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect the Jewish family hiding in her home. It’s a historical limited series called Mrs. Alice Battenberg.

Budget: $150 to $180 million

Actors for main roles: Kate Winslet as Alice and Adrian Brody as Andrea

Pages/scope: 9 episodes of 1 hour each

Who has seen this: I’ve talked to a couple of producers, but it hasn’t been optioned yet

Why does this fit the company: Your series Xxxxx touches on the same historical period

How does it end: Years after Alice’s death, her son Philip, consort of the British queen, attends a ceremony in Jerusalem to honor her courage.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent’s Pitch Fest Pitch

Hi, I’m Gill Kent. I’ve used my writing skills in many fields over a long career, and in recent years I’ve been researching the suppressed story of Princess Alice.

My project is a historical limited series called Mrs. Alice Battenberg.

This is the true story of a princess who stares down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect the Jewish family hiding in her home.

PAUSE for script request!

I expect the budget for the nine-episode series would be between $150 and $180 million.

Kate Winslet looks a lot like Alice and would be a perfect choice to play Alice in her middle years.

Alice’s husband, Andrea, would be an interesting role for an actor like Christian Bale.

Act 1 (Ep 1-3): Alice, deaf from birth, grows up in Britain under the watchful eye of Queen Victoria. Alice meets and marries the handsome Greek Prince Andrea and moves to Greece with him, where she throws herself into the duties, as she sees them, of a princess, going to the front lines in war to set up field hospitals, serving in food kitchens, founding orphanages. When Europe explodes into conflict with war and revolution, Alice’s extended family across Europe find themselves on opposite sides, and the Greek royals are exiled.

Act 2 (Ep 4-6): Revolution in Russia devastates Alice’s family as her uncle, Tsar Nicholas, and her mother’s sisters, Tsarina Alix and Grand Duchess Ella, are murdered. World war ends but conflicts continue, the old order is uprooted, and monarchs lose their thrones. Greece invites the royal family back, but an ill-planned war against Turkey ends in disaster. Andrea is scapegoated for the rout and sentenced to death. Alice appeals to King George, her cousin in England, for help, and Andrea, Alice, and their five children escape in a British gunboat. In exile again, Alice and Andrea both unravel in their own ways, Andrea taking up with a louche crowd in the casinos, Alice adopting odd new-age ideas. When she threatens to embarrass the royal establishment, Andrea conspires with her mother to have her drugged and driven across the border to a Swiss sanatorium.

Act 3 (Ep 7-9): While Alice is struggling to escape confinement, Andrea sends their eight-year-old son, Philip, to live with relatives, marries off all four daughters, and settles down in Monte Carlo with his movie-starlet mistress. Some three years later, Alice frees herself and turns her back on the family, living in boarding houses during the rise of the fascist threat. After relatives die in a disastrous air crash, she returns to Greece as war erupts. When Greek Jews face extermination at the hands of Nazi occupiers, Alice risks her own life to hide a Jewish family in her home. She establishes a nursing sisterhood to serve the poor, adopting a nun’s costume herself. Her son Philip marries Princess Elizabeth, heir to the British throne, and Alice leads the consort’s family during Elizabeth’s coronation. A quarter-century after Alice’s death, Philip attends a ceremony in Jerusalem to honor her courage.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gill Kent.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent’s Query Letter

The true story of a princess who stares down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect the Jewish family hiding in her home.

Audiences are fascinated by the British royal family. But what do royals mean when they talk about duty? Princess Alice, King Charles’s grandmother, born deaf, believes her royal duty is to the poorest of her realm. She marries Prince Andrea of Greece and throws herself into serving the destitute of Greece.

When Andrea is scapegoated for a military disaster and about to be executed, Alice appeals to her cousin, the British king, to help the family escape.

Andrea’s affairs during the years in exile take a toll on Alice’s mental health, but Andrea betrays the wife who saved his life, conspiring with her mother to have her locked up in a Swiss sanatorium to prevent embarrassment to the royal establishment.

After three years she escapes. She returns to Greece and finds herself in conflict with the Nazi occupation. She chooses to hide a Jewish family in her home, risking all when her Gestapo son-in-law visits Athens.

If you like the concept of this limited series, I’d be happy to send you the pilot.

BIO: Gill has been writing professionally for decades. She’s spent five years researching the suppressed story of Princess Alice.

Contact: email xxxx@xxxx.com; text: 000-000-0000

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gill Kent.
• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by  Gill Kent.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is how to use AI prompts for brainstorming.

AI has given me several potential pitches, but I like mine best:

The true story of King Charles’s grandmother, Princess Alice, a royal princess betrayed by her family who escapes confinement and faces down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect a Jewish family.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Gill Kent.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent’s Synopsis Hooks
What I learned doing this assignment is to be succinct in getting over the main points without giving in to the temptation to tell the whole story.

The Hooks:
Alice is a princess who believes that her royal duty is to the poorest of her realm.

Alice stares down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect the Jewish family hiding in her home.

After dedicating his life to serving his country in the military, Andrea is scapegoated for a military disaster and about to be executed when Alice appeals to her cousin, the British king, to help the family escape.

Andrea betrays the wife who saved his life.

When Alice has a mental breakdown, her mother and husband conspire to have her kidnapped and locked up in a mental hospital to avoid embarrassing the royal family.

After several years in self-imposed exile, Alice renews contact with her family when five relatives, including her daughter, are killed in an air crash.

Rather than remaining with her family in England or Germany, Alice returns to Greece to fulfil her duty as a Greek princess.

Phillip, Alice’s son, scorned by the royal family for his homeless status, nomadic lifestyle, and hand-me-down clothes, marries the future queen of England.

The Synopsis:
Audiences are fascinated by the British royal family. But what do royals mean when they talk about duty? Princess Alice, King Charles’s grandmother, believes her royal duty is to the poorest of her realm. She marries Prince Andrea of Greece and throws herself into serving the destitute of Greece.

When Andrea is scapegoated for a military disaster and about to be executed, Alice appeals to her cousin, the British king, to help the family escape.

Andrea’s affairs during the years in exile take a toll on Alice’s mental health, but Andrea betrays the wife who saved his life, conspiring with her mother to have her locked up in a Swiss sanatorium to prevent embarrassment to the royal establishment.

After three years she escapes and turns her back on her family, renewing contact only when her daughter and grandchildren are killed in an air crash. Alice returns to Greece and finds herself in conflict with the Nazi occupation. She chooses to risk her own life to hide a Jewish family in her home, staring down her Gestapo son-in-law when he visits Athens.

After the war, Alice’s son Phillip, taken from her at the age of eight and scorned by the royal family for his homeless status, nomadic lifestyle, and hand-me-down clothes, marries the future queen of England.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent: 10 Most Interesting Things

What I learned doing this assignment is that there’s a lot more plot in a limited series than can be squeezed into a short pitch, so I need to pull out the absolutely most compelling points

A. What is most unique about your villain and hero?
Alice is a princess who believes that her royal duty is to the poorest of her realm.
Alice stares down her Gestapo son-in-law to protect the Jewish family hiding in her home.
After dedicating his life to serving his country in the military, Andrea is scapegoated for a military disaster and about to be executed when Alice appeals to her cousin, the British king, to help the family escape.
Andrea betrays the wife who saved his life.

B. Major hook of your opening scene?
The nun leading a procession during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth turns out to be the queen’s mother-in-law.

C. Any turning points?
Princess Alice is violently kidnapped into a mental institution.
After several years in self-imposed exile, Alice renews contact with her family when five relatives, including her daughter, are killed in an air crash.
Rather than remaining with her family in England or Germany, Alice returns to Greece to fulfil her duty as a Greek princess.

D. Emotional dilemma?
Either Alice can turn her back and ignore the plea for help or she can take the Jewish family into her home and risk her life hiding them from the Nazi occupiers.

E. Major twists?
Without warning, Alice is drugged and driven across the border to a Swiss sanatorium.
Phillip, Alice’s son, scorned by the royal family for his homeless status, nomadic lifestyle, and hand-me-down clothes, marries the future queen of England.

F. Reversals?
Alice grows up in the luxurious lap of the British royal family but gives away all her riches, selling her jewels to fund orphanages and soup kitchens, and dies owning nothing but three dressing gowns.

G. Character betrayals?
When Princess Alice has a mental breakdown, her mother and husband conspire to have her kidnapped and locked up in a mental hospital to avoid embarrassing the royal family.
After locking Alice away, Andrea marries off their four young daughters, sends their eight-year-old son to relatives, and settles down with his movie-starlet mistress.

H. Or any big surprises?
Alice renews contact with her family after years apart, but decides to return to Greece rather than stay with them.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent: Producer/Manager

1. Presenting myself and my project to the producer.

I have a compelling narrative with a broad potential market involving a true story about historical characters in gossipy personal relationships who also have their hands on the levers of power. I have a pilot and the makings of episodes 2 and 3, along with a show bible and the main story arc and subplot arcs plotted out across nine episodes.

2. Presenting myself and my project to the manager.

I’d don’t expect to be looking for a manager because I’m planning to retire and am not looking for a career in writing, but I do want to get this project made. If I did approach a manager, however, I’d emphasize that with nine episodes in the limited series, this project will probably take up the next five to seven years of my productive life. I see potential for the story to become a blockbuster series and I have the confidence to believe that I can write most or all of it myself. I’m flexible and collaborative; I’ve already redrafted my pilot several times, and I’m open to notes. After this project, I want to write my memoirs, but I do also have ideas for a very different genre, a sit-com titled Squat! about New York’s East Village in the 1980s.

3. What I learned today is . . .

That producers and managers have differing needs and wants. In approaching them, we should keep the individual’s requirements in mind and pitch to those requirements, not our own.

[Gill Kent]

My current logline: The true story of a princess who struggles to escape the stifling grip of the royal establishment, surviving madness, war, betrayal, and Nazi occupation to serve her people in a country far from the land of her birth.

What I learned in this assignment is that I still need to develop the less-is-more principle.

I think I have six of those ten components and I’m not sure which to focus on.

A. A princess descended from Queen Victoria who dresses like a nun and spends her days in orphanages and soup kitchens seems pretty unique.

C. It’s a true story, and I’m trying to keep as close to actual events as possible.

D. The royal family is constantly in the news at the moment, so it’s timely. Alice’s grandson Charles has just become king, and Alice goes into self-imposed exile to escape the demands of the royal establishment just as Harry and Megan have.

G. It has wide appeal, particularly to an international audience. Much of the story takes place in Greece, revolutionary Russia, and Germany during the rise of fascism, and Commonwealth audiences may enjoy insights into their former rulers. It has strong female roles that will appeal to a female audience but also scenes of action that will attract male audiences.

I. It has obvious parallels with The Crown, but the shifting focus of action between the various European thrones, along with the scenes of war, assassination, and international conflict, put it closer to Game of Thrones (no dragons, though).

J. I have a particular A-list actress in mind for the role of Alice, at least in her middle years. Not only does this actress look very much like the historical Alice, but by some odd coincidence she’s bought a house three or four miles from where Alice was conceived and spent her first months of life. And she’s known to love the kind of dramatic roles the central episodes offer.

I suppose my task now is to pick the two most important of these components.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Gill Kent.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent Project and Market

1. True story, historical drama, Mrs. Alice Battenberg: intimate family dynamics against the sweep of history in a limited series of nine episodes.

2. Princess Alice, Queen Elizabeth’s mother-in-law, was born deaf but lived a life of action, drama, madness, and betrayal, taking to the front lines in the Balkans War to set up field hospitals, facing down Nazis to save a Jewish family in WWII, and smuggling medicines from Sweden into occupied Greece. She was related to the royal families who spanned the map of Europe and bickered over sex and power, and was herself kidnapped into a sanatorium to ensure her silence after her husband started having affairs, but she never lost sight of her goal of serving her people.

3. I’ll be targeting producers with connections to streamers, especially Apple TV. This is a big story and a big-budget series, so I’m looking for deep pockets. Why Apple TV? Because I’m positioning the series as somewhere between The Crown and Game of Thrones, so I’m calculating that Apple might want something to go up against those two.

4. What I’ve learned today is that I need to talk less and stick to a couple of salient points. I haven’t quite got the knack yet.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Gill Kent.

[Gill Kent]

Hi everybody, I’m Gill (that’s Jill with a G). I’m working on my first and probably only script, or rather, series of scripts for a historical biographical limited series. something strange or unusual? It took hours to get access to the videos and forum, and I still haven’t received an assignment

[Gill Kent]

GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
This completes the Group Release Form for the class.

[Gill Kent]

Gill Kent. I agree to the terms of this release form

[Gill Kent]

Hi John, what a coincidence, my right leg is also an inch shorter than my left, but my left foot is a full size larger than my right. Shoes? Tell me about it!