Pitching

On the Lot is a new reality show by Fox which is American Idol for directors. Actually make that writer-directors as the directors have to write their own stuff and if they're crap writers then they will go home early. The winner gets a million dollar contract at Dreamworks.

Although this was an international competition, the online streaming of the shows is only available in the US (or for those who use an anonymous proxy server) but the short films can be accessed by all.

Anyway, these directors have to come up with ideas for short films and film them quite quickly, which I acknowledge is a hard job, but what's strikingly obvious is the lack of originality. Most of the stories were either a re-hash of famous sketches or famous films. They generally weren't something taken from their own imagination, real life and truth.

I think those failed directors needed to focus on character more and invest more of themselves into those characters. Rather than re-writing a date scene from a movie they've seen, they should have started with their own views and experience of dating and spinning off of that. Original characters and truth is the best way to get a fresh story.

There's a perfect example of this early on. The contestants were given one of five loglines and they had to go away and think of a film to pitch based on that. This is the logline the video clips relate to:


Obviously the contestants are also being judged on how clear their pitches are and how confident they present themselves but think about which film you would rather see and why.

Pitch 1




Pitch 2



The first pitch is all about events happening which pays little attention to the characters and how those events affect them or to the suggested genre of the logline.

The second pitch started with an intriguing character, a star priest destined to be the first American Pope, what's the worst thing that could happen to him? He falls in love. Of course there have been loads of priest falling in love stories but that second pitch doesn't remind me of any of them while the first pitch reminded me of The Exorcist as there was no character to care about, just the image of projectile vomiting.

That's something to bear in mind for those of us going for 25 words or less or Fever Pitch

Just because we don't have to write a full script for those pitching competitions, it doesn't mean we don't have to write a full story. That can take longer to write than the script which is just adding dialogue to that story.

We need to know our characters and our story.

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Loglines

Creating Bomb-Proof Loglines
Loglines and Synopsis
Writing Loglines
Tips on loglines
Writing Loglines that Sell
Writing loglines for a comedy


Synopsis

Writing a Synopsis
Tips on Synopses
5 Steps To Writing A Synopsis
Brief synopsis
Screenwriting Tips: Scripts/Synopsis
Suffering the Synopsis


Pitching

Writing: The Pitch
The Wind-up and the Pitch
Pitching your story
Preparing to Pitch Your Screenplay to a Studio
The Art of Pitching (Lockhart)
The Art of Pitching (Field)
Pitching your story to sell
Concept is Everything When You Pitch
Pitching (Julie Grey)
Screenwriting 101: The Pitch
The Story Engine: Lisa Holdsworth On Pitch Docs

Also Danny has written about his pitching experiences here and here.