When you're pitching a business, it's all about numbers and market
research and projections and plans. But pitching a movie is all about emotion. Emotion is hard to just airdrop into. You have to work up to it. Emotion exposes you, makes you vulnerable. It can feel like taking your shirt off
in the middle of a meeting and then just assuming
everybody wanted you to. By the way, just like
with everything else in these videos, I'm still getting good at this. I still feel horribly, horribly awkward
whenever I pitch. But I've learned
some really awesome things, and especially in the past few years that have made it slightly
less horrible and awkward. So I share them with you now. One. You're playing a character. That character is you. You're playing yourself and you can be whatever
version of yourself that you want to be. If you don't think you're
very good at pitching, write a version of yourself that is going
to pitching and then play that guy. Don't be a character
you don't know how to write. This is huge. Don't try to fit a template. We all have some kind of image in our heads for what a pitch is supposed
to look like or sound like. But there's no rulebook. There's no universal template. All that's expected of you
is to communicate the idea. That's it. How you do that is entirely up to you, and you can make a real name for yourself
by doing it in a original way. That's for yours.
If it doesn't feel natural, it's wrong. Screw templates are expectations. If you don't feel it
or believe it in your bones, no one else will think of it like you're
just telling a friend about a movie you love. You probably heard this before
because it's really good advice and it helps take the pressure off
and redirects your energy toward a more subjective and emotional place,
which is what you want. People don't just want to hear an idea. They want to hear your idea. In any video game,
the man with the grenade launcher is unstoppable, right? Enthusiasm is your grenade launcher. You will destroy entire rooms
simply by being excited about your work. I would venture to say
enthusiasm is like 99% of the work. That's probably an exaggeration,
but it's an enthusiastic one. Nailed it. Documents. So here's something huge
I learned recently. Leave behinds are generally a bad idea. It can be tempting to write up
a slick document to leave in the room because we're writers,
and so we're better explaining our ideas with our documents
than we are with our mouths. But when you go into a room
and you tell everyone your idea and you get them
all really excited about it, you leave and then all they have to go by is their memory of your pitch,
which is a memory that is 99% emotion. But you leave a document now
they have something they can scrutinize, pick apart, reinterpret, misinterpret
all the bad pics. So I will say this about documents
that are really, really, really great
for an early phase of development when you just want to bounce your idea off
some trusted friends and collaborators to get the reaction. But this phase is also
when stuff is really, really raw and half the pitch can really
easily end up being disclaimers. So it's basically an homage to an Amber
film of the eighties, but I know you're thinking
and I was way ahead of you. I'm super, super like super eight
totally did that. It's about this boy who goes missing. You start to unravel
these like government. There's like this girl they find. I know it sounds very generic,
but it's actually really cool. Trust me, this isn't actually the sound
of one person presenting an idea. This is the sound of one person
presenting an idea and another person being a jerk about it, constantly
interrupting him, tripping him up. And we recognize that voice. So Abra said, This sucks. That's right. This city,
it doesn't waste any time. He's ready to work from the second. You have an idea. So again, I say, make him work for you. If you've never seen the CUNY document,
the J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof
wrote up to pitch their vision for Lost. You have to Google it. It's awesome. It's written in this genius question
and answer format that creates this very casual,
very aerodynamic reading experience that completely avoids the trappings of being overwrought
or self-important or cold. More importantly, it allows the writer to be in full control
of what the reader is thinking at all times. Sounds like heaven, isn't it? So just like with that internal story
development Q&A experiment that we did a little while ago, let's assign evil you
to be the voice of the skeptical reader. I like to let him be a total smartass,
because if the reader is a smart ass, then they feel represented. But even if they're not,
they're entertained and amused like this. So tell me why early? What's this new idea? It's a TV series
set in 1983 about a small Indiana town confronting government
conspiracies and supernatural forces in the wake of a disappearance
of a 12 year old boy. It's a love letter to Stephen King
and the Apple Films, the 1980s. So Super eight, I know on paper right now
it sounds well read by Super eight. Did you see Super eight? Yes.
And it was awesome. It has a different. Well, I'll tell you. Okay. See what's happening here. You're addressing everything
the reader is thinking as they think it. They keep veering toward every cliff
they see. But so do you. And by fully acknowledging those cliffs
and driving right up beside the reader, you're able to keep them on the road
and take them on your journey on this road that you're obviously
and openly still paving. So this Q&A format is a really effective
way to communicate an idea while it's still not fully formed. And it's super helpful
for sending the friends and collaborators to get feedback
and generally just get other people excited
about your idea so they can cheer you on because this is hard work
and you shouldn't do it in a vacuum. I'll also fill these documents
with imagery to help quickly establish your tone. I'll usually save most of the imagery
for later in the document after they've gotten a chance to read it
and what it's about. But I think it's important to give them
at least one image right at the top, one iconic image that sums up the story
and your vision for its execution. What about moving pictures? You ask some people short films
that are basically glorified camera tests or sometimes
even entire scenes from their movie. Deadpool famously leaked their proof
of concept online to get fan support and wound up
getting the movie made that way. A lot of people make record rip
max or sizzle reels. Sizzle reel tend to be
where people basically have people cut together shots from movies that
represent the tone and look of the film. Ryan Johnson says a real for Looper
is a really great example of that rip of Maddox. These are really complex. These are basically fake trailers cut using footage from other films,
and it's become somewhat of an art form. They'll literally cast their movie
like saying Tom Cruise plays the husband, Naomi Watts plays the wife. And I know in this movie,
Tom Cruise is in the kitchen saying this. And I know in this movie, Naomi Watts is hugging a person
who looks like Tom Cruise from behind. And they literally have these amazing
fake trailers that look like real movies. Now, a lot of this can be a lot of work, and you have to decide
how much of it is worth it. It's always important
to stick to your minimum viable product. And what is the very least you can do
that has the maximum impact? Because this is a business where you will pour your heart and soul
into something and have it go nowhere. But as I've said, it's imperative
that whatever you're developing, whatever you're working on, you've got to be
pouring your heart and soul into it. You got on it. Which brings us to my final
and perhaps most important point about pitching, and really
it applies to writing and life in general. And it's something my good friends do
martial Arts told me recently. When you're in these rooms and you're
pitching your ideas to somebody. There are two kinds of people in the room. There are moving trains and schlubs
standing on the platform with all their bags waiting for a train
to take them somewhere. The common mistake we all make is presuming that we are the schlub
and they are the moving train. You are the train. Don't be the schlub. You're making this movie. They're welcome to get on this train
if they want to. If not, cool. But you are the thing that has value. You are the train. So get moving.
