Hey Readers! A movie "pitch" is something a screenplay writer like myself creates as a way of gaining the interest of major movie studios. The idea is to sum up your idea in such an engaging way that development executives scream "GREENLIGHT" the second you're finished speaking. Since you never know when you're going to wind up at a movie producer's party or crouched in the backseat of their SUV, it's important that you have ALL your pitches perfected and memorized at all times. Practice them on your family, or in my case, the mirror.
I've diagrammed my favorite pitch of all the many I've written below. It's for my techno thriller "Snake Revision," a screenplay I started in 1994 and only just finished last Thanksgiving. Take a look!
In 1979, CIA scientist Harp Caliber made the discovery of a lifetime: a formula that turned anyone who drank five gallons of it into a mystical glowing turquoise snake.
This is the hook that locks in their attention. It's very important, and this one is particularly amazing. A glowing snake? What? Kids will love it!
Harp knew his overlords at the Central Intelligence agency would happily turn such a formula into a cold-war weapon, so he hid the formula inside a secret vault 300 feet below the Empire State Building. He retired from the CIA and became a private detective, and never told anyone about the formula or the science that led to it.
Intro part. A weapon hidden under the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING of all places? WOW. And try to use the word "empire" whenever you can, because it reminds people of "Empire Strikes Back," a famous star wars movie.
Intro part. A weapon hidden under the EMPIRE STATE BUILDING of all places? WOW. And try to use the word "empire" whenever you can, because it reminds people of "Empire Strikes Back," a famous star wars movie.
But he did keep a diary. And when his estranged son Randy Storkjam inherited Harp's detective agency, that diary was the only thing he had to remember his dad, not to mention his only source for great tips on being a private detective.
Intro part 2: The diary part is for the ladies. Son part is also for the ladies. Intro part 2 is for the ladies!
Intro part 2: The diary part is for the ladies. Son part is also for the ladies. Intro part 2 is for the ladies!
Case after case led Randy back to mid-town, back to the Empire State Building. In 1991, Randy realized all the great detective tips in his father's old diary were a lot more than just detective tips: they were designed to keep him near the Empire State Building as much as possible.
Hook Part 2: After the second part of your intro, you gotta throw in another hook. This is it, and it's fantastic.
Hook Part 2: After the second part of your intro, you gotta throw in another hook. This is it, and it's fantastic.
He had to know why! Could his father have been leaving him some sort of secret message? Randy attacks the problem the only way he knows how: by getting a job as the janitor at the Empire State Building and using his fathers P.I. tips to investigate every brick, every elevator shaft, every women's bathroom in the entire building. But the Empire State Building is huge, and life is what happens when you're making other plans.
Action: Every executive knows that action is the best way to get people buying tickets, and at this point they're going to be asking themselves "I love this film. But will it have action?" This part is the answer to that question, and that answer is YES. Getting a job in disguise! Cleaning! It's got it all. This is a great pitch.
Before Randy knows it, five years have passed, and Randy's son Greg has become a wide-receiver for the New York Jets. And he's only ten! What happened was, his son was in a gruesome car accident, and when the doctors were done they left a pair of steel surgical scissors inside him. Turns out Randy's son is reverse allergic to steel-- meaning, essentially, that the scissors give him super-health. It's hard to believe, and also VERY surprising to anyone watching this movie, which all of a sudden is about a ten year old playing professional football. Needless to say, Greg and his teammates on the Jets win the Big Game. But in that time Randy has been so focused on his son's athletic career that he forgot what parts of the Empire State Building he already checked for clues, and he has to start again.
Sports Part: Some people think it's okay to skip the sports part of their movie pitch, but I say you need it. The executive is worried that people will stay in and watch sports, and the sports part is the part that tells them: wrong. Nailed it.
But this time Randy's got help: his ten-year-old millionaire pro-football playing son, dressed up as another janitor and with a razor-sharp pair of scissors creeping ever closer to his juvenile heart. And Greg has a great idea-- this time, let's start from the bottom instead of the top. A few months later, on the last day before Greg must leave to participate in the pre-season, Greg and Randy come across a mysterious metal plate hidden beneath a mound of large snake skeletons....
Action: Every executive knows that action is the best way to get people buying tickets, and at this point they're going to be asking themselves "I love this film. But will it have action?" This part is the answer to that question, and that answer is YES. Getting a job in disguise! Cleaning! It's got it all. This is a great pitch.
Before Randy knows it, five years have passed, and Randy's son Greg has become a wide-receiver for the New York Jets. And he's only ten! What happened was, his son was in a gruesome car accident, and when the doctors were done they left a pair of steel surgical scissors inside him. Turns out Randy's son is reverse allergic to steel-- meaning, essentially, that the scissors give him super-health. It's hard to believe, and also VERY surprising to anyone watching this movie, which all of a sudden is about a ten year old playing professional football. Needless to say, Greg and his teammates on the Jets win the Big Game. But in that time Randy has been so focused on his son's athletic career that he forgot what parts of the Empire State Building he already checked for clues, and he has to start again.
Sports Part: Some people think it's okay to skip the sports part of their movie pitch, but I say you need it. The executive is worried that people will stay in and watch sports, and the sports part is the part that tells them: wrong. Nailed it.
But this time Randy's got help: his ten-year-old millionaire pro-football playing son, dressed up as another janitor and with a razor-sharp pair of scissors creeping ever closer to his juvenile heart. And Greg has a great idea-- this time, let's start from the bottom instead of the top. A few months later, on the last day before Greg must leave to participate in the pre-season, Greg and Randy come across a mysterious metal plate hidden beneath a mound of large snake skeletons....
End Part: The end of your pitch isn't very important, because if you've done your job with the rest of the pitch the executive will be too busy counting his future oscars to pay attention. But you can never tell, so I encourage people to make sure the last section of their pitch has a child with a life-threatening "ticking clock" malady.
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