“I was I child in the eighties, and I vividly remember the drills where we had to hide under our desks as some kind of ridiculous protection in the event of a nuclear attack. Living in constant fear of nuclear war, I was naturally fascinated that many of the men who developed the bomb questioned the morality of their work. Yet good things came out of that work as well – nuclear energy and scientific advancement that we’ve built upon since then. This was on my mind as I read ‘Jurassic Park.’ The book perfectly captures the struggle between what’s possible, and what’s right. But instead of nuclear bombs, we have Tyrannosaurs Rex.”

  Not bad. From there, it would be easy to slide right into telling the story, as you would bring it to life.

  Another example:

  Let’s say you were pitching to get the job to write an adaptation of Marvel Comics’ “Captain America.” You’re not a superhero and you probably didn’t fight in World War II. But you might start talking about how you were always small for your age and were always picked last for sports, even though you loved sports. You could talk about how you relate to that aspect of Steve Rogers’ character – how his desire to serve his country is confounded by his physical limitations.

  The personal connection should lead in to pitching the story. It contextualizes the pitch. If you were doing the “Captain America” pitch with the take described above, you would want to make certain to reference back to that outsider theme regularly.

  There are other ways into the “Captain America” story. Maybe you have always struggled with the balance between patriotism and the need to hold leaders accountable. Or maybe you are interested in the personal vs. public nature of heroism. The point is that you need to find a way to make the story your own.

  One last aspect of the personal connection we should mention. In addition to the challenges you will face convincing someone of the value of your original idea, there are many situations where the buyer is skeptical about the value of their own project. This may sound strange, but it happens all the time with assignments.

  Many projects at studios and production companies languish for years without ever finding a writer with a take that works. It’s not unusual in this situation for a buyer to see his or her own project as unsolvable. Or the buyer might have a bare notion of a subject matter or arena (maybe something set during Spring Break) but they have no idea how to approach it. In both of these examples part of the writer’s task will be to convince the buyer of the value of the buyer’s own project. The solution to this task may live or die in your passion and personal connection to the project.

  What kind of movie is it?

  At the most basic level, the pitch is a verbal summary of your story. But it is actually more than that – you are trying to convey the experience of the movie you want to write. While some aspects of the experience can be conveyed in the body of your story, many others cannot. So before launching into the plot, describe what kind of movie you’re planning to write. This usually includes:

  The title.

  Naturally, if you’re pitching an assignment or adaptation it’s likely the listener will already know the title, but if you’re pitching an original idea, have a good title for it. It helps make the movie seem real. Make sure the reason for your title is clear. It doesn’t help your pitch if the title is abstract or seemingly unrelated to the subject matter. Using our heist story as an example, “The Hostages” would be a much better title choice than, say, calling it “The Fishbowl,” unless your pitch uses a fishbowl as a clear metaphor or a fishbowl is used as a significant prop in the story.

  The logline.

  At the beginning of your pitch give the listener a one or two sentence description of the story that conveys the hook. This will function as an overview for where your story is headed. As we’ve said, it is hard to follow things delivered verbally. If you lead off with a solid logline that encapsulates the idea, then it will be easier for the listener to place the plot points in context. The logline should be specific and concrete, not vague. And as we emphasized previously, your logline must also be amply reflected and dramatized in the story you are about to tell. The most compelling aspect of your idea should be apparent in this logline. This is your opportunity to engage the listener. If you haven’t hooked them within the first two minutes of your pitch, you probably never will. If you spend your first ten minutes getting lost in a cul-de-sac of irrelevant or self-indulgent details, such as over-describing the world or the characters, it’s likely the buyer will tune out before you get to the heart of your story.

  Tone, genre, rating.

  Don’t make the listener guess if it’s a comedy or not, or if it will be R or PG. It’s okay to say, “This is a light romantic comedy,” or, “This is a graphic, R-rated horror movie.” Again, it helps the listener contextualize the story as you describe it. Of course you should also make sure that what you establish here is reflected in the pitch itself. As we said before, a comedy pitch that is not funny, or a romance that doesn’t tug at the heartstrings, or a horror pitch that doesn't bring the terror are almost surely doomed to fail.

  Comparing to other movies.

  Comparing your pitch to other films is one of the trickier things to pull off, and it takes careful thought to do it right. The “X meets Y” pitch is a Hollywood cliché and can be more confusing than helpful. But if done right, comparing your project to similar movies can help establish the tone and other aspects of your story quickly and easily.

  Here are a few tips to help guide you.

  Use contemporary movies: If all your comparisons or references are to 1940’s movies your idea will sound old-fashioned and possibly obscure. Obscure because, while many people in Hollywood are movie and television history buffs, many are not. Even for film buffs an old film might be a vague memory. Or, they may recall some vague, unfavorable aspect of you choice of comparison. For example, making reference to a well-known film like the 1940s film “It’s a Wonderful Life” is full of risks. While few will challenge the film’s stature in film history, many recall the film to be emblematic of a soft and corny tone, hence the phrase “Capra-corn.” (Not to mention the film famously flopped when it was released in 1946.) It’s better to compare your film to ones that were released within the past five years. Even if you are pitching a remake of a vintage film, this is a wise thing to do. After all, you are most likely there telling the listener how you plan to update the vintage film.

  Use successful movies: Comparing your movie to monumental flops is not a good way to sell anything. Hollywood values success over all other values. Use well-known and successful Hollywood movies. This will increase the chance that others will be familiar with the reference. If your listeners haven’t heard of the Hungarian art house film you use as an example, it does you no good at all.

  There are some caveats to this advice. There are different kinds of perceived success in Hollywood, and we are not saying you should only make comparisons to films that grossed, say, $100 million at the box office. There are some films that may have only grossed a moderate amount, but are considered triumphs in their own right. “This Is 40” is a good example. The film got mixed reviews, but grossed $70 million in the U.S. and only cost $35 million to produce, so it is regarded as a very viable R-rated comedy, relative to its cost. On the flip side of this calculation, a film like “Life of Pi” grossed almost $120 million in the U.S. but might be considered too artistic or idiosyncratic to make it a good comparison. There are some movies that executives believe can only succeed when done by a certain filmmaker. Finding the best film comparison is not just about box office, though. Pitching your film by comparing it to top-grossing films like “Titanic” or “Avatar” can seem like a crass over-reach. On the artistic end of the spectrum, the day after “The Artist” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, not one studio was seeking to emulate it, despite its virtues.

  Make your comparison clear: Too often inexperienced writers toss off comparisons to other films where their intent is unclear. “It’s like ‘The Avengers’ meets ‘Taken.’” What does that mean? Maybe the meaning will be clear in the context of your pitch, but maybe not. It might be better to say, “A team of heroes have to work together, like in ‘The Avengers,’ but the mission is to save one of the heroes’ kidnapped daughter, like in ‘Taken.’” In this latter example it is more specific and clear what exactly you are trying to pull out of your comparison.

  If you are still unsure about making comparisons, it is probably best not do it. Or if you are pitching your project with your project’s producer, allow the producer set the stage for the pitch, including handling comparisons to other films prior to launching into your pitch.

  So what is the real value of setting up tone, genre and making comparisons?

  The upsides are the positive associations and improved clarity they can create in the mind of your listener. It should be self-evident why a convincing comparison to a hit film might be beneficial. This is Hollywood, after all. But understanding the value of clarity in areas of tone and genre cannot be over-estimated. The challenge of pitching, and even writing, is the challenge of conveying an artistic “vision” from one person to another. This is a difficult thing to do, and the people who do it are always trying to find a common artistic vocabulary to make the job easier. These tips can be valuable tools in this effort. They help the listener imagine how the story you describe will be realized. If you were pitching our bank heist story, your listener is going to picture it very differently if you establish you are pitching a broad PG-13 comedy vs. a gritty, realistic, R-rated thriller.

  Imagine you were pitching something like “Austin Powers.” If you launched right into the plot without establishing the tone, would the listener know it was a parody? Or would they think you were a really bad writer pitching a really bad spy movie?

  “The Bourne Identity” and its sequels are in the same genre and have the same rating as the old James Bond movies, but James Bond has a more fantastical, light-hearted tone while Bourne films are more gritty and realistic. A villain with steel teeth fits into Bond’s world but not into Bourne’s.

  Using comparisons can head off a buyer’s concerns before they occur. If there’s something about your idea that feels difficult or non-commercial, finding some recent, successful films that had the same element can ease the buyer’s mind. For example, if your story is about a character that is alone for a large amount of time, you might compare it to “Castaway.” However, be sure that the comparisons are really similar or it will just highlight the problem. In ”Castaway” there was an inanimate character (the Wilson soccer ball) for the main character to interact with. If your story doesn’t have a similar device you haven’t really eased the buyer’s mind.

  Even if you choose not to make use of comparisons to other films as part of your pitch – and it is perfectly fine not to – you should still be prepared to make them because the buyer might very well ask you what other films are like yours. Being able to reference two or three recent, successful films when needed will go a long way to putting the buyer at ease as to the viability of your idea.

  Introducing the world.

  At this stage, most writers will launch into a description of their story’s setting. Depending on your subject matter it may already be clear. If your one-liner is comparable to our sample bank heist film, it may be super-clear: a bank. Nevertheless, there are many stories that require more time and effort than, “Fade in. It was a typical day at the bank…”

  Some genres, like sci-fi and fantasy, take place in an unfamiliar world that has to be established before you can delve into your story. This can be particularly challenging in a pitch. If it takes you ten minutes to describe the setting of your story, you risk boring the listener and using up time needed for character and story. You have to think carefully about how to set up the world efficiently. What aspects of the world are critical to the story? In “Children of Men” the fact that humans have lost the ability to reproduce is critical, as is the fact that Britain has walled itself off from the outside world. However the slightly futuristic advances in computers or cars are irrelevant and could be skipped in a pitch. When pitching sci-fi you should give a time frame – is this ten years in the future? A hundred? Thousands? This can help you establish much of the context and you’ll only need to highlight the most relevant technologies. Fantasy is harder, but if you can compare it to something we know – medieval Europe, for example – you might be able to shorthand it for the listener.

  This challenge can also occur in stories that are not sci-fi or fantasy. A pitch with an historical setting may require some context for the politics or customs of the era. Would you be able to pitch the hit series “Downton Abbey” without first establishing the highly specific cultural aspects of England in the early 20th century? Occasionally, even a realistic, contemporary story has a specialized world that requires some description. If you were pitching a movie like “Contagion,” you might need to describe the workings of viruses and the CDC.

  The other thing you’ll need to do is establish the rules of any magic, supernatural elements or speculative technology. If you fail to clearly delineate what can and can’t be done in the world you’re attempting to portray, you risk confusing your listener or looking like you are making things up as you go along. For example, Harry Potter can perform numerous magical feats, but the filmmakers establish that this is what a wizard does and that they need a special wand to do it. Rules. Sometimes, if there’s only one unusual thing or rule in your story, it can be revealed in the course of the story. For example, in “The Fly” you could describe the rules of the teleportation devices when you tell how the hero invented them. But if your world depends on these elements, you may need to address them up front. This applies not just to sci-fi and fantasy, but also to supernatural horror, superhero movies, and other stories with these elements. Set up only the rules that will become dramatically necessary or relevant in your story. Be specific and clear.

  Fortunately, our heist movie doesn’t require the establishment of a specialized world.

  Introducing main characters.

  Once you’ve successfully introduced the nature of your project, it’s time to dive into the actual story you want to tell. We’ve been calling this “the plot” of your story even though we’ve advised you that it’s really more than this.

  First, you will need a strategy to introduce your main characters. You will have to decide whether to present your characters as they appear in the normal course of your story or introduce them before your launch into your plot.

  You may want to set up your characters before the plot if establishing your main character requires a long description. In this situation you might not want to stop the flow of your story for a long-winded aside. Perhaps your listener needs to understand the past or “back story” of a character to make a plot point in the story work. In the script you might handle this by using a flashback or a short preamble but both of these devices can be deadly in a pitch, unless the events they present are very dramatic. Or perhaps your main character is not human and lives in a fantasy world. For example, imagine how tough it would have been to explain what a Hobbit is if the Tolkien books had not existed! In our heist story, it shouldn’t be difficult to establish John’s character as we meet him. In the first few scenes we can easily dramatize what John does for a living, how he tries to help customers (including Tony) and how this causes conflict with his boss, Kent.

  On the other hand, what if a significant plot point of our heist story required the listener to understand something that happened to John in his childhood? We may not want to have a flashback in the pitch, or describe the scene where John tells Tony this information in the course of their growing friendship. If the story about John’s childhood is really important, we might want to tell the listener about John’s character, including this incident, before we launch into plot.

  Another reason to establish your character up front is when you have multiple lead characters in your film and you’re afraid introducing too many characters in the body of your pitch will confuse the listener. This situation can occur if you are pitching an “ensemble piece.”

  Frequently it is better to start off by describing each member of the ensemble in comparison to each other, focusing on the key similarities and differences that are critical to the thematic elements of the story. So if you were pitching “The Usual Suspects” you might want to describe the five criminals that compose the gang, or if you were pitching “Little Miss Sunshine,” you might start by describing the six members of the family.

  When choosing this approach, be sure that you have given a solid logline in the set-up so the listener knows where you are headed. Also, it can be easier for the listener if essential characters are referred to, not by their names, but rather by what they do or how they are related to the main character. So using our heist example, John’s branch manager’s name is Kent, but as we pitch it may be clearer if we just refer to him as “John’s boss,” after his initial introduction. Once you’ve given more than about three or four names, it will be difficult for the listener to remember who’s who.

  Another aspect of introducing characters has to do with how you describe them in ways that allow your listener to understand their essential nature quickly and efficiently. There’s a little bit of poetry involved in this challenge, especially if you decide to introduce your characters in the body of your pitch where brevity is key. Naturally, some of your character descriptions will involve things like their job, their age, or their sex. The more difficult task is helping your listener get a grasp on your character’s personality in a concise but vivid way. One trick is to identify two significant traits for your main character: one strength and one weakness. In our heist example we can describe John as a “20-something loan officer, the kind of guy that will give you the shirt off his back, then buy it back from you at a mark-up.” We could have just said John is “generous but gullible,” but we hope you see that this latter version lacks the same poetry. What you are establishing in the pitch are the key characteristics, desires and flaws that will come into play in the story. You will likely reveal far more about the character in the script, and know even more than that before you start writing, but again, the goal here is the best fifteen minute version of the story.

 

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