Pitching Tips

The Golden Pitch Festival

The Screenwriting Expo hosts something called the Golden Pitch Festival. You have to pay extra for it, even if you have an Expo Gold Pass, but being able to pitch is worth its weight in… well you know.

If you’re an unrepresented writer, it’s the easiest way to get face-time with the people who can actually help you get your movie made, give you representation, or hire you for a writing job.

The following pitching tips come from my own experiences (both pitching and public speaking), and from the training seminars I’ve taken.

I’ve decided to split this article into 3 parts, starting with:

Before you get to the Pitch Festival…

Pitching Tip #1: Make sure you have a logline

A logline consists of one or two sentences (one is better) that captures the premise of your script in the most compelling way.

If you don’t have a logline for your script, it probably means either A) your script is unfocused, or B) you haven’t been writing long enough to understand its importance.

Both are red flags to producers and managers.

Pitching Tip #2: Make sure you have a one-sheet

A one-sheet is something that you can leave behind when your pitch is complete. At minimum, it should have the title, genre, logline, a brief synopsis, and your contact information on it.

Optional items:

• A catchy tagline for your movie
• Loglines from other scripts you have completed (I don’t personally put these on there as I feel they dilute the focus of the current script I’m trying to sell)
• A very brief bio (if you have experience relevant to your script, or have won some awards, or have a Master’s Degree in Screenwriting from USC, etc.)
• A terrific quote from a respected industry reader or someone recognizable in the industry about your script
• Hire a graphic designer to create a professional and memorable one-sheet for you on nice paper/cardstock

And remember, make sure you spell everything correctly! I met a woman at the Expo who had been handing out one-sheets with a misspelling in her title for several days.

Pitching Tip #3: Figure out the structure of your pitch

Yes, your pitch should have a rough structure. It should be something like this:

• Genre your script falls into (e.g. Action, Comedy, Action-Comedy, Thriller, Pscyhological Thriller, etc.)
• Time period of your story (only necessary if it doesn’t take place in the present or if the title begs the question)
• Primary location(s) of your story
• Title, then Logline; OR Logline, then Title (often times the Title can serve as the “punchline” to the logline, so make sure you have a good one)
• Additional info to drive home the concept. For example: “It’s a modern day take on The Legend of Zelda.” Or “It’s Taken but with a brother and sister, instead of a father and daughter.” (That actually sounds pretty good)
• High level story beats (notice I didn’t say “plot”). This will be the “meat” of your pitch.

The reason you don’t just launch into the story beats is because you want to orient the producer/manager as quickly as possible, and provide a context, to the world of your story.

Pitching Tip #4: Make sure you practice your pitch

We all have varying speaking abilities. Some people seem to have been born with the gift of gab (Quentin Tarantino), the rest of us have to work at it. Regardless of where you fall on the scale, you need to spend some time practicing your pitch.

Some of the best practice can come from just chatting up your friends about your script. Don’t tell them you’re pitching it to them, because it immediately sets up a weird dynamic. Just say, “Hey, have I told you about my latest script?”

Then try to sell them on it. Pay attention to what they respond to, and what they don’t, then incorporate the good stuff into your final pitch.

Pitching Tip #5: Make sure you time your pitch

Whether you practice your final pitch in front of other people, or just rehearse it quietly to yourself, you absolutely need to time it with a stopwatch. Yes, a STOPWATCH! If you don’t time your pitch out in advance, you WILL run out of time (5 minutes).

I wouldn’t recommend filling up the entire 5 minutes either. Remember, pitching is interactive and “in the wild.” Crazy stuff will happen that will chew up your time unexpectedly. And you will almost certainly be interrupted by the producer or manager with questions or comments.

It’s best to plan for a pitch that’s around 3 minutes. 4 minutes  tops! That way you can go into your pitch relaxed and not worry about the seconds ticking away.

Pitching Tip #6: Study up!

Pilar Alessandra has a great interview with the pundit of pitch-prep, Danny Manus. You can check out that podcast here.

If you have several months before your next opportunity to pitch, why not join a Toastmasters International club in your area? I’ve seen it work wonders for people who were previously crippled by the idea of pitching or public speaking.

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Any other pre-arrival pitching tips you’d add?

Next Edition: Pitching Tips Part 2 — When you get to the Pitch Festival…

Previous Screenwriting Expo 2011 Posts:

- First Impressions
- How do you get a Manager?
- Top 20 Agent Tips

The Screenwriting Expo 2011

This weekend I attended the Screenwriting Expo in Los Angeles and took in some terrific seminars and panel discussions. I also pitched my latest script to a number of production companies.

All this week I’ll be updating you with screenwriting tips and insights gleaned from various sources. I’ll also throw in a few stories from my experiences. So stay tuned!

But first…

What is the Screenwriting Expo?

The Screenwriting Expo is a yearly event that gives screenwriters rare access to screenwriting consultants and established industry pros (Agents, Managers, Producers, and Professional Screenwriters).

You pay something like $100 for a basic pass and then $5 or $6 per seminar (some panel discussions and keynote speaker sessions are free). There’s also a Gold Pass which I believe is $300 that gives you unlimited access to any seminar. Though unless you’re Hermione Granger and can attend multiple sessions at once, I’m not quite sure how the extra $200 dollars is justified. Perhaps you get a free monkey.

Anyway, in addition to the seminar portion of the event, there are opportunities for screenwriters to pitch their ideas, and themselves, to production companies and management companies. The pitch tickets are extra (even with the Gold Pass), and depending on how you ordered them, they cost anywhere from $15 to $25.

So keep all that in mind for next year… if you decide to go.

First Impressions

I’m not gonna lie, the Screenwriting Expo web site is about as easy to navigate as that maze in The Shining, so I didn’t have high hopes for the organization of the event.

When I arrived at the main door of the Westin Hotel, there were no signs pointing me to the Screenwriting Expo (or maybe I was just blind), so I had to ask someone where to go.

After I found the registration area and picked up my package, it was discovered that my pitch tickets were missing. I was then referred down a long hallway to the pitching area. They, in turn, referred me back to registration… who then referred me back to the pitching area. Finally one of the volunteers wrote my pitching times on a blank card with a red Sharpie.

“You sure this is going to be accepted in there?”

“Oh yeah totally.”

It seemed sketchy, but Dude was right!

However, when I went in to pitch I discovered that if you had a 10:10 a.m. pitch time like I did, that didn’t mean you were pitching at 10:10 a.m. — it meant that you were pitching at some point in the future depending on how far behind schedule the pitches were running.

Turns out I only had to wait an additional 15 minutes. But on the last day of pitching, I had to wait an additional 40 minutes and missed the keynote speech by Ben Ripley (who wrote Source Code). However there were unexpected benefits to the whole debacle. More on that story later in the week…

The Case of the Disappearing Companies

Many people were told, while waiting in line, that their scheduled production or management company had cancelled.

This happened a lot. Standing there felt a little like Russian Roulette, only in reverse. You dreaded not getting your shot.

You’d be standing there, visualizing your pitch, stressing about how things were going to go, then you’d hear a volunteer call out, “Is anyone here waiting to see [insert absent company name here]?”

Then several nervous attendees would answer, “I am.”

To which the poor Expo volunteer would have to say, “I’m sorry, they’ve cancelled.” or “I’m sorry they’re unavailable right now — they had to go to a panel discussion. Maybe you can reschedule or switch to a different company at another time. Or you can get a refund.”

So it wasn’t bad enough that you had to worry about your pitching performance, there was a tremendous amount of added stress brought on by the fact you had to worry about whether or not your company was even going to be there.

But if you actually got in to pitch to your company, and you had your stuff together, it was a golden opportunity.

And I must say the volunteers they hired for Screenwriting Expo did a FANTASTIC job. They were good at diffusing stress, encouraging and attentive to the needs of the attendees, highly adaptable to the sometimes troubling circumstances, and tireless in their efforts.

The great news is that after the initial hiccups, things went quite well and it was a very rewarding experience.

Did anyone attend the Expo on Thursday or Friday? (I only attended on Saturday and Sunday.) What were your first impressions?

Tomorrow’s Edition — Important Tips from Managers…