Hey all- hope everyone is having a productive week thus far. I'm curious: For those of you who have had more formal training (MFA, undergrad degrees, certification programs, or whatever): what kind of training, if any, did you receive on the art/skill of verbal pitching?
My experience has been there's little to none, but I wanted to learn if I was wrong in that! All thoughts welcome! Meanwhile, keep grinding it out!
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Hello, jJared, ihave been there tooo and i found it useful as i did it for my forst ever project which is now in ful development, I did it as part of my degres and on mine i had to sit in front of 12 people and deliver apitch with everything researched, costs , prices estimated break even point and proifit. They even included losses when you do not meet your break even points. They went in to how write your picthes / proposals as certain key phrases that sell them to prospective clients and partners.
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I am attending The Los Angeles Film School. I am in the Writing For Film and TV program and they have 2 classes focused on pitching. The Program is 36 months and each class is 4 weeks. so they have 8 weeks dedicated to pitching.
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Catherine Mercer Thanks for sharing that! That's pretty thorough, it seems!
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@David Shorb - 8 weeks feels like a luxury! That's excellent. I'll be curious to hear how you feel about their instruction in the end!
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Jared Michael Delaney, I took a Television Development class in my Junior year of Film School and it was my FAVORITE class and professor from my entire four years. We had to prepare a one-minute elevator pitch based on an article or news headline every week and stand before the class to present it at the start of every class. This was meant to get us comfortable putting together a logline and basically pitching it in front of people. Then for the semester, we worked on developing a series bible, writing a pilot, and creating a budget for our own series. At midterms, we had to pitch our series concept in three minutes to the class as well as professional guest judges. We were given feedback from our professor and the guest judges and had to pitch it again a final time during finals.
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My UCLA Extension students develop a TV series through writing a full pitch bible, and they need to present a 15-minute verbal pitch to industry guests and the rest of the class. Of course we are spending time on how to prepare to pitch verbally. In my pitch labs here on Stage 32 we spend one class (out of four) on verbal pitching.
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I learned most of what I know about pitching in the real world so I taught a Stage 32 class on pitching. my class is focused on TV but the fundamentals translate to film and digital. Here’s a link if you want to check it out: https://www.stage32.com/education?p=8944915120435
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What I have learnt over the years of pitching non-movie projects to very powerful people is….
They want you to succeed. They value their time over everything else. So they want you to be great so they are not wasting their time.
So knowing that you are in a room of fans. Being nervous is you thinking their good intentions are all lies. I know that is a little simplistic. But people do want you to do well.
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At my UCLAx Pro-Series screenwriting course, we students each pitched to the instructor, and we received feedback from her and classmates. Great course!! Her advice: read the room, lead with something they can all relate to, and then say it’s a true story.