Different Wings

My first ten pages are attached in PDF format.

TV Pilot Pitch: DIFFERENT WINGS

Overview

Different Wings is centered on 21-year-old Kelly Stockton. When we first meet her, she is at a crossroads and time is running out. In seven days she’ll graduate from Rosecliff College in Newport, Rhode Island, and return home to her sheltered family life, built around the needs of her adorable, autistic brother Kevin. But Kelly is desperate to find a way out, so she can have a normal life like Abby, her lifelong friend and most trusted confidante and counselor.

Kelly feels like an outsider, having had no social life at Rosecliff. She originally commuted to Hofstra on Long Island, but then transferred to Rosecliff in order to experience the freedom of living away from home. However, her father’s sudden illness disrupted those plans, forcing her to spend every weekend at home to help her mother, while only staying at college to attend classes during the week. Now, Senior Week is beginning and Kelly will finally experience the Rosecliff social scene for the first time. Her roommates Michelle and Robin are the only classmates she knows, but three’s a crowd in their small apartment, so they’re happier when Kelly goes home.

For the first night of Senior Week, Abby devised a plan for Kelly: find a romantic partner who will help her escape from her abnormal family life on Long Island. Kelly follows that mandate and makes several attempts to meet guys. But she fails in a variety of ways, none worse than when her meet-cute with piano player James Turner ends in a mortifying humiliation. But something about Kelly caught James’ attention, and he decides to seek her out.

The pilot continues with an exploration of the dynamic between Kelly and James, with the ever-present ticking clock of graduation looming. Her roommates have plenty to say along the way, as do James’ roommates Richie and Adam. In addition, James and Kelly are both hiding secrets that could ruin everything. But the biggest obstacle arrives in the form of James’ force-of-nature ex-girlfriend Macie, who’s returned to Newport determined to rekindle their former relationship.

World

Different Wings begins on May 10, 1998 - Mother’s Day. It’s the end of the 20th century, and several years before 9/11 altered humanity’s collective psyche and became the launching point for a rapidly changing world. In 1998, young Americans were strongly optimistic with hope for a promising future. It’s also when the Stockton family struggles to cope on a daily basis with Kevin’s autism, due in no small part to the lack of services available for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Technologies of that time include a young but evolving Internet, with CDs and mixed tapes serving as the main sources for playing music. A key element is the limited communication technologies of the time period. Some people carried the new mobile flip phones, but many poor college students retained their pagers. Smartphones, texting and social media didn’t exist, and taking a photo or recording a video required an actual camera or camcorder. Email communication was prevalent - as long as you could remember the recipient’s email address. Our societal tribes fought more over sports than politics, and most of the cable news networks were regarded as reliable sources of factual information.

The fictional Rosecliff College features an oceanfront campus in Newport, Rhode Island, which includes the Rosecliff mansion from the Gilded Age. The Alumni Relations office is located on the second floor, where Kelly does work-study for her Aunt Lindsey, the Dean of Alumni Relations. Different Wings will explore many areas of Newport, including the vibrant downtown area along Narragansett Bay, the Cliff Walk area fronting the Atlantic Ocean, and the Rosecliff mansion itself for some unforgettable Senior Week events in the Bridgerton-style ballroom.

The Stockton family lives in the quaint village of Oyster Bay along the north shore of Long Island. Known as the former home of it’s favorite citizen, Teddy Roosevelt, it features 100-year-old buildings, inviting pubs and restaurants and a large wide-open park along Oyster Bay harbor. The Stocktons are longtime friends with the Winters family, who live next-door. The Winters own a vacation home in Montauk at the eastern tip of Long Island, near rolling waves on oceanfront beaches. It’s also not far from the famous Montauk Point Lighthouse, with an observation deck at 166 feet above sea level and located 28 nautical miles away from Newport’s Castle Hill Lighthouse.

Main Characters

Kelly Stockton - our 21-year-old selfless hero, she silently brands herself as the “forgotten child”. For most of her life, she’s been overshadowed by her special needs older brother, Kevin. She believes that she is destined to one day become his caregiver. But like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, she’s looking for something more than the hand she’s been dealt. Kelly craves a normal, independent life of her own, with someone to love. But her anxiety and lack of courage hold her back. Growing up, Kevin monopolized her parents’ attention, and she lacked their guidance and encouragement, resulting in low self esteem and a poor self-image. She’s never had a long-term relationship, which she blames on Kevin, thinking no guys wanted to be around him.

James Turner - Kelly’s love interest and fellow senior at Rosecliff, James grew up in Boston. He is the lead singer and keyboard player in a classic rock cover band called The Throwbacks. An extroverted-introvert, he expresses himself well in large groups but keeps his feelings under the surface. Rather than revealing his emotions with his own words, he often expresses himself by quoting a line from a movie. He had a stuttering problem in his youth, causing him to withdraw, but he’s learned to manage it as an adult and it only appears in stressful situations. He’s set to graduate with a degree in Computer Science and already landed a job at The Learning Company in Boston, not far from where he lives with his grandmother. At the age of 10, he lost his parents, Rosecliff College alums, when their car broke through the guardrail on the Newport Bridge and plummeted 100 feet into Narragansett Bay, killing them both on impact. James was subsequently raised by his grandparents, and became a rebellious teenager and got into drugs to cope with his grief over his parents’ death. After a failed suicide attempt with pills, his grandfather, Pops, forced him into psychotherapy, which changed his outlook and turned his life around. Pops, a former naval seaman and survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack, became his mentor and father figure, and they bonded over local sports - Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics and Patriots - and their shared obsession with movies, including the classics. When we first meet James, he’s in a dark place, having decided to commit suicide. The tipping point was the recent death of Pops, followed by the breakup with his girlfriend Macie.

Kevin Stockton - Kelly’s autistic older brother, standing over 6 feet tall with the maturity of a 6-year-old boy, with all of the same interests and mannerisms. This also means that he will never be able to take care of himself independently, and is the central conflict facing the Stockton family, and Kelly’s future outlook. He has a very outgoing personality and is happy to talk to anyone who will listen. He also has OCD and is obsessed with cartoons and superheroes. When they were young, he and Kelly would wear beach towels as capes and play in the backyard with their next door neighbors in a game called Someday Heroes. Kevin is a treasure to all who get to know him.

Richie Bertucci - also from Massachusetts, he’s James’ best friend, roommate and drummer for The Throwbacks. He’s a big guy with a boisterous personality and a heart of gold. He calls James “my boy” and is always looking out for him, especially since Pops passed away and James became depressed. Richie wears his heart on his sleeve and doesn’t hide anything from anyone, the polar opposite of James. He readily admits that James is the friend he knows the least about, because James keeps his true feelings hidden inside. Richie’s been dating Natalie since freshman year and they seem destined for marriage, but their familiarity with each other often presents amusing one-liners at the expense of the other.

Abby Connors - Kelly’s best friend and counselor. They’ve known each other since 1st grade, and Abby is Kelly’s biggest supporter and cheerleader. Abby represents everything Kelly aspires to be: confident, willing to take risks and looking forward to a bright future. Abby has a great relationship with her parents too, in contrast to Kelly’s authoritative parents.

Robert Stockton - Kelly’s 52-year-old father, who works as an insurance broker at the local real estate office, along with his wife Jill. Normally a domineering personality, he’s been on disability from his job for 10 months, bed-ridden with Lyme disease. His impatience and stubborn nature cause him to become active when he notices the slightest improvement in his recovery, resulting in a cycle of relapses - 1 step forward, 2 steps backward.

Jill Stockton - the rock of the family, her life changed forever when Kevin was diagnosed with autism. She and Robert adapted as best they could, but the years took a toll on both of them. Now with Robert’s illness and not able to work, she burns the candle on both ends as she tries to care for Robert and Kevin while maintaining her career as a real estate agent. She only gets a break on weekends when Kelly comes home to relieve her, but weekends are when she has open houses, so she really doesn’t get a break.

Themes: love, family, relationships, freedom vs. obligations, struggle, grief and loss.

Tone: emotional with escapist realism, sexy but intimate, aspirational.

Stakes

Kelly:

External: she wants to create a normal and independent life, free from her family responsibilities and expectations.

Internal: she needs to know that Kevin is safe and being cared for, but she learned as a little girl that only her family can be trusted to protect him from the outside

world.

James:

External: as he contemplates suicide, he wants to find a reason to go on living.

Internal: he needs to fill the emptiness in his life after so much personal loss.

Central Conflict/Story Engine - character vs. character: siblings Kelly and Kevin. Kelly wants a normal and independent life with someone to love. But Kevin will always be dependent on her because of his disability.