5 Tips for Creating and Delivering The Perfect Film Pitch

5 Tips for Creating and Delivering The Perfect Film Pitch

Some writers and filmmakers love to pitch their films. In fact, they can hardly wait to talk about their projects and whatever they have to say seems to result in big breaks and passionate support. Other folks struggle to pitch their projects, stumbling over sentences that sound like haiku and communicate about as much. If you’re one of the many who just can’t seem to get their pitch right, you’ll find the following suggestions helpful. They are culled from years of pitching and watching others pitch, and they are guaranteed to help you pitch more happily and effectively in a short period of time.

1. Pitching is All About True Love

The first thing to understand about pitching a project is, it’s all about True Love. When you are pitching someone on a screenplay or a film project you want them to invest in, you are really asking them for the world. It usually takes millions of dollars and several years to get a film to market. The vast majority of the people you pitch to are not going to be investing their time and money in your project. The only folks who will make that investment are folks who really love the thing as much as you do. At least, you hope so. If you honestly love your project, the worst thing that can possibly happen to you is to get someone involved who is only in it for the money. Because those folks will want you to add a moose to your project because one of their potential investors owns a hunting lodge. When you pitch you are looking for people who want to make the film you want to make, who understand intuitively what the film is about and why it is important.

Knowing that you are looking for true love makes things much easier. Because when you tell someone about your project, in the natural course of a conversation, you can “sell” it based on why you love it and not the millions its going to make them. Your first sentence will tell them what it is about, and from that moment on you’ll know if you’ve found someone “cool” enough to know what’s good. For those of us who would have invested in APOCALYPSE NOW, Coppola couldn’t have gotten through “Its Conrad’s Heart of Darkness set in Vietnam” before we were wondering how much money he needed to do it. Its just that simple. You can identify folks who are not good partners just as easily. You pitch APOCALYPSE NOW and they say stuff like “Why are you making a film about war? There are so many nice things to talk about.” Send those folks off with a smile and a handshake. They are on this planet to make someone else’s film and the sooner they find them the better.

Always remember that pitching has far more to do with the story you are trying to tell than it does with coming up with some way to trick people into liking it. Just come up with a sentence that describes your film the way you’d describe to friends if you saw it in a movie theater. That’s your opening line.

2. After You Fall In Love, You Can Talk About Getting Married

After love comes marriage. A good pitch naturally leads to questions like “What’s you budget”, “Do you have any talent attached”, “When do you want to shoot”.

If you are really dedicated to having your project made, you’ll have answers to these questions. Because the truth is all you’ll want to do on God’s Green Earth is make this film. Someone, somewhere has to love a film that much for it to get made. Someone has to be willing to paddle that canoe right up the river to the silver screen. If you can’t answer hard questions about your film now, invest some time in getting answers to the questions most people ask. No one else is going to answer those questions if you can’t.

Those pitching screenplays should have some idea of who they’d like to play the lead roles. Even if those folks never get cast, it helps people “see” and understand the film better. Those who want to have someone invest in their film have to have lots of answers because they are asking for lots of money.

In very rare cases the “right” answer to a question is “Well, what do you think?” Sooner or later a good partner will have thought about some aspect of your project you never considered. When that happens, its time to ask them for answers. After all, film is a collaborative medium. People who participate in the development of a film expect to play a role in its . . . development.

3. The Right Pitch Varies from Person to Person, Moment to Moment

The interesting thing about pitching is how often you have to do it, and how often what you say has to change. A writer, even when a producer is on the scene, is often called upon to pitch their script to actors, directors and investors. Why? Because they understand it best. Filmmakers will have to pitch actors, directors, investors, UPMs and members of the press. Your pitch will vary based on who you are speaking to and when in the development process you are speaking to them.

Actors tend to like to hear about the unique importance of their character in a project, while line producers want to know how many days you plan to shoot. They’ll all want to know the overall story of the film, but in every case what comes next will vary. This is one reason why a “one size fits all” approach to pitching is invariably unsuccessful.

4. Your Pitch Has to Ring True

Another interesting thing about pitching is that if you have concerns about your project, they’ll invariably turn up in the pitch. You can’t pitch “around” a problem. If there is something that bugs you about your script or film project, fix it. The reason to make your script as good as it can be, and your business plan as accurate as possible, and your budget as complete as can be, is because it frees you to make impossibly good pitches. Frankly, I’ve seen actors handed scripts that had two errors on every page, and it never got mentioned because the writer was so passionate about the project that the actors just wanted to find out what all the excitement was about. This is not about the freedom to deliver a sloppy script. It is about the freedom to make a perfect pitch because you know what you are giving people is something you have every confidence in.

5. Your Pitch Has to Endure

One of the most amazing things that will happen to you when you pitch a project well is that people will become passionate about it. When that happens, you will start to hear other folks pitching your project for you. Your passion will have become their passion. Some words will change, the emphasis may be different, but a good pitch is as memorable as a good film. When you hear other people delivering your pitch you’ll know you’ve done it right. Your pitch has given your project a life of its own.

A Final Note

Friends and relations are rarely the best folks to try your pitch on unless your last name is Scorsese and your uncle’s name is Martin. Most folks can’t imagine anyone buying anyone’s film and their responses to a pitch are disheartening as a rule. So practice your pitch on folks that you want to help you on your film. Early on, you can pitch actors so they’ll help you with table readings that let you fully explore your characters. Later you can pitch other screenwriters so they’ll read the script and give you notes. As time goes by you’ll develop a pitch that gets you whatever you need to make your film. That, by definition, will be a perfect pitch.

Question by cows go moo: How can I improve this script for my video?
so i have this project for school and we had to make up a fake business (that doesnt have to be doable). i chose to do a pet store/shelter called 4 Paws. and we have to do film a video that explains what it does. I have a good idea about what I want to say, but am having trouble with my intro and the placement of my sentences. Im a perfectionist and am getting in my own way of finishing this. Can anyone help me improve this? I also really need to rewrite the intro, but have no idea how, does anyone have nay ideas? this is what i will be saying in the video so spelling and such doesnt matter. Please and thank you.

I put the first part in brackets because i cant think of what i what to say. Having a lot of trouble with using my words, please help.

[You see the commercials on TV, sometimes you even hear about it on the news. Animal abuse. Every animal lover knows most animal shelters aren’t properly….]
4 Paws is a two part business. It is a pet shop that sells typical pet supplies and provides services such as: grooming, dog walking, daycare, and dog training, but what is different about 4 Paws is that it is also an animal shelter. Half the profit made from the 4 Paws pet shop goes to the 4 Paws shelter. It is a small rescue shelter that is specifically for dogs. 8 to 12 million animals in the US alone are put into shelters a year, and 5 to 9 million of those animals are euthanized. 4 Paws wants to change the way animal shelters run, that’s why none of dogs at 4 Paws are euthanized unless its absolutely necessary for the animals sake.4 Paws is also a good way for high school students to receive their community service hours. With the assistance from volunteers and staff, dogs are regularly exercised, given individual attention and love, they are socialized with other animals and people, and they also receive basic obedience training from certified dog trainers. Some staff members also specialize in rehabilitating abused animals.4 Paws does all this in the hope that when the dogs are adopted they will make well behaved and lovable pets.

Best answer:

Answer by Puss in Boots
I like your idea and how the shelter is basically being paid for by the same business

but keep in mind that a lot of time they have to put the dogs to sleep because they are so overcrowded with animals sometimes they just have to let some go

like the part where you are making high school students work there as community service so you don’t have to pay them, bravo!

however, what if the cost to run shelter become greater than the revenue you made from the pet products you sell? you already have to worry about the cost of business itself, and you are adding the cost of keeping those animals alive too at the same time you would need to have a lot of investment to open a store that’s as big as petsmarts or petco just to compete and stay in the game or else.. you are not going to make it just with a small starter store.

What do you think? Answer below!
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