Screenwriting : Crafting pitch decks—a vital component in enhancing the marketability of your feature script. by Jacob N. Stuart

Thanks for sharing and it is interesting that Pitch Deck are now vital and their success here spilled over from the industries of Presentations and Marketing.

Great skills to have. The only thing I believe. Their attention span is huge, but you have to earn it.

There is a million bad pitches. You have to earn their attention. If you are bad at the start, you are the same as the million bad pitches.

I’m curious as to how pitch decks are different from look books.

Seems lots of lazy producers dont want to work, want desperate writers to do their jobs.

Anyways the only pitchdecks I've seen sold was by a director who hired his own team and together, they sold the pitch to the decision maker. Basically, a bakers' dozen of directors wanting same job.(the movie did poor box office numbers and director went back to directing tv).

Desiree Middleton A look book is also sometimes called a mood board (in Europe anyway) and is all about giving the visual vibe of the film. Usually there is little or no text.

A pitch deck is a written pitch and look book in one document. It will include logline, synopsis, character sketches etc., along with pictures.

Great Q&A, Jacob N. Stuart! I've been seeing more and more producers, directors, and companies asking for pitch decks.

Dallas King said in the Q&A, "Because we are naturally visual beings. Probably our biggest sense is SIGHT. And really, it’s even more obvious because we are in the business of visual narratives." That's why I make pitch decks and posters for my scripts. These visuals catch the eyes of producers, directors, and companies quickly.

Dallas also said, "The fact is, when you develop and create a pitch deck you will know your story even deeper." That's true. Most of the time I wait until after the script is a final draft before making a pitch deck, but sometimes I make a pitch deck up front to develop the story and understand it more.

Maurice Vaughan I usually get asked for a deck anytime anybody wants to see the script. It is also pretty common for directors to scout for scripts to add to their pitching rounds, and they always want a deck.

Great article. Thank you for sharing, Jacob.

I've put together 4 pitch decks and working on others for my loglines. What Mr. King and Maruice have pointed out a pitch deck helps to develop your story more. I've made changes to my pitches based on what I put in my pitch decks.

The other thing I do is create a video of the pitch deck, even using music where appropriate to set the mood. Upload them to YouTube and include a link with the pitch/my web page.

That's been my experience sometimes too, Christiane Lange. And I just like making pitch decks for my scripts. It's fun. Sometimes I lose excitement for a script, and making a pitch deck gets me excited about the project again.

Jacob, I enjoy working with tools such as ScriptHop (it works like a traditional pitch deck) and Prewrite (that one works like a lookbook).

I've even put links to my Prewrite-ScriptHop projects on https://jimthescreenwriter.wordpress.com.

You talk about fun!

Looks great, Jim Boston. I might try ScriptHop and Prewrite.

It can be daunting, but if you have a strong visual sense for your project, then pitch decks are an awesome way to get people into the 'vibe' of your story quickly. However, if you're like me and graphic design is calculus to you, it's okay to not do pitch decks also. Just say you don't have one and it's not the way you prefer to pitch. Some people are naturally conversational and can do more with words than a million images. One good tool I've seen friends use is Ch*tGPT to mock up basic designs with simple prompts like: "a redhead guy and a hippopotamus doing the macarena" which then spits out fairly compelling images with one click!