For the upcoming pitch I wanted to make sure that my presenting skills and overall pitch skills are improving from pitch to pitch, a major problem with my previous pitches is confidence and talking in front of people. This takes away from the pitch as if I can't get my words out its hard to make people understand what the idea is and get them on board. The skills I want to improve for upcoming pitches is public speaking and memorising and been confident in my idea, so I can pitch it passionately and have people more involved in it. I've made sure my powerpoint presentation is filled with the answers I have to questions at the moment, but when it comes to the idea, I want to pitch it from the top of my head, to know the ins and outs of the story well enough to pitch the film as if I just saw it and I'm describing it to a friend. I started looking online and watching videos about writers techniques and how to pitch an idea. A Hollywood writer and one of my personal favourites, Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra) has quite an open mind and talks and voices his opinions and thoughts online at his YouTube account. He's the son of director John Landis (The Blues Brothers, Animal House) and during a podcast discussed what pitching is and various ways to pitch successfully. The specific part of the podcast can be found and listened to here:
Max Landis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOgHtKpmbKI
During the conversation he talks about not allowing the person to become bored or disengaged and how that results in losing the pitch. You need to know and assess who you're pitching to and pitch in such a way that is suitable to them, maybe something there used to or something they've never seen before but are interested and seem to love. I've discovered that the best way to get someone on board is to infect them with your passion, to almost involve them in your pitch so they're following along, they're asking questions and making connections between points you're making, once they know the story and love it as much as you do, you've successfully pitched. If not maybe it's just not the right idea, maybe you try again with something new and fresh.
A method Max uses for when he's pitching is a beat by beat style, meaning not describing the whole story and boring the person, but describing the movie like you already saw it, so it's almost like you're selling your friends to coming to see this movie with you. This style helps and makes the pitch more chilled and personal, it takes away any nervousness or expectations of what the pitch can be and makes it fun and challenging in a new way. If you were pitching it to a friend, you wouldn't want to spoil or ruin the ending or certain parts, so Max talks about how you pitch the hell out of the first act, you don't discuss dialogue, you still pitch the plot in order but it's "Loose" and loose is good.
Marc Zicree Pitching- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Lc-_tSN1c
Marc Zicree Breaking into Hollywood- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xo3F5rPqXA
In another video, writer/producer Marc Zicree discusses the art of pitching and the rule of 3 when pitching professionally, this is interesting when it comes to breaking into the industry and how to make friends and professional relationships with higher ups and the people that can help you progress with your work. He talks about knowing the people who can help you and talking to them and not pitching to them the first time, to build a relationship first because they're tired of hearing pitches and ideas thrown at them all day at work. In another video the same writer talked about having professional screenwriters read and give notes on your work and not just teachers or screenwriting guru's who may have never sold a script before, it's important to have people who work in the business and have experience to kind of mentor you and progress you in your writing style and career. This is good knowledge to have about screenwriters and the business for when entering the industry.
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