Nowadays, it would be the Netflix/Amazon/Disney+ pitch. They used to call loglines the “TV Guide” pitch. As I’ve expressed, these articles will reveal a logical process to creating the marketing tools for any script. The reason for this convolution is that once a student creates some of the marketing tools we’ll cover ahead, we can then discuss how they can use those tools to help create a pitch for their project. Once we examine the rest of the tools in this series of articles, we’ll circle back to pitches to see how to specifically do a pitch class and what its goals are. Doing a pitch class in and of itself is invigorating, fun, and an easy way for you to get the entire class engaged in a process that is a standard part of the entertainment industry but also has other, tangible benefits. That’s the timer I set on the pitches in class. There is really nothing like having to tell your story in five minutes. The process reveals flaws and awkward story narratives. But for many reasons, delivering that script’s story verbally is a major challenge a good challenge. Every writer thinks they have a grasp on their story, especially if the script is already written. If you think you know your script well, try pitching it. I’ve done it in many of my classes and it’s great practice for anyone who might have to do it in a professional situation, which we hope will be the case for all of our students. Necessary though, so I continue to work at it.īased on the horrors of my experiences, I determined that as an educator, it would be helpful to create a pitch class that is hopefully both simple and entertaining to introduce students to the process. Basically, you’re orally telling the story of either a script you’ve written or one you want to write, as was the case in the anecdote I mentioned. Pitching is hard and I’ve made so many mistakes doing it even though I consider myself a pretty good storyteller, both on paper and verbally. Donner was a gentleman but ultimately passed on the idea since neither he nor I could make sense of my pitch after that. Flop sweats began, which soaked my shirt through and I delivered, at best, a sloppy mess. I couldn’t for the life of me get them back in order. Just as I was sitting down in Donner’s office, nervous and overwhelmed to be pitching a director of his stature, I dropped the index cards. For the pitch session - which was to be myself, the two producers, and Donner - I made index cards so I wouldn’t get lost in the rather complex story of the 400-page book. I was hired by two producers to break down a book to then be pitched to Richard Donner as a feature. Let’s first discuss pitching, a most horrible exercise guaranteed to make you insane. There are also templates in Final Draft that can help (we’ll get into those in subsequent articles). Click here to learn about some of these tools. These are marketing concepts, and every writer and writing student should understand them.įinal Draft 12 has many tools geared to help with these processes, which can make writing life so much easier for both you and your students. They’re a little like Russian nesting dolls each fits into the other. Outlining, be it mind maps, index carding, or just a standard, level-based structure (1, 1a, 1b, etc.) has a place here tangential to the creation of the others. Getting them right is as much an art form as it is a pure writing exercise. Each serves a purpose and each is unique. Loglines, synopses, treatments, beat sheets, and pitch decks - all of these are marketing tools. To that end, let’s begin a discussion about some of the tools a writer should have - and can easily learn in a classroom environment - to help our charges to succeed as scriptwriters. I made it through to start a great career, but I truly wish someone had introduced me to concepts that would have helped me stumble less at that time. Honestly though, I was lost during most of that early experience because I had never done anything like that before. I was overjoyed to be hired to write the script. I then had to craft a story treatment to be approved. I was hired to write a script based on a concept that I delivered to a film company looking for sequel ideas to one of their films. It doesn’t happen often for those without a track record, but it can happen. But film is somewhat unique in that during certain periods of any selling cycle, a pitch, written or verbal, can sometimes be enough to get a sale (or at least interest). Nothing can be critiqued, edited, promoted, or sold until it’s real. Every scriptwriter’s first job is to finish their script.
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