29 March 2010 ~ 0 Comments

Pitching at the Drop of a Pin

This is the sce­nario. You’re a young writer out to lunch with friends and one of your friends sees a pro­ducer they know. They intro­duce the writer to the pro­ducer who asks the writer about his script. The young writer gets all tongue-tied, can’t artic­u­late what his script is about, and misses a golden oppor­tu­nity to impress a pro­ducer. The sad thing is this sit­u­a­tion is repeated time and time again, day after day.

Here’s my ques­tion… are you pre­pared to “pitch” your script at the drop of a pin, in any social sit­u­a­tion? Writ­ers tend to hone their pitch­ing skills for that elu­sive moment when they get into “the room” to pitch. But what about all the other times when you meet some­one in a non-industry, social envi­ron­ment and get to talk­ing about your script. Are you pre­pared for that? This is Hol­ly­wood and you never know who you’re going to run into.

You’re a writer. You’ve spent months writ­ing and fine-tuning your script with an eye towards sell­ing it. You know you’re going to have to “tell” it to “sell” it. How much time have you spent prac­tic­ing your every day con­ver­sa­tional pitch, the one you use when­ever you talk about your script in a social envi­ron­ment.

Have you spent time in front of a mir­ror (or on a video cam­era), prac­tic­ing your con­ver­sa­tional pitch, much like an actor rehearses a mono­logue? Have you rehearsed your con­ver­sa­tional pitch with your friends?

Here are a few tips that may be help­ful: Just give them the hook. Keep it sim­ple. Not a lot of detail. One or two lines. And remem­ber it’s a con­ver­sa­tion!

To Your Suc­cess,

Tanya
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