Description
The first step to getting any project made is having the goods—a screenplay, an original television pilot script, episodes of a digital series, a short film script, a documentary treatment or proposal—and then developing a rock-solid pitch. By asking important questions—What is your story? To what kind of viewer will it appeal? Is it practical? Has it been done before? What makes your project unique? Why am I the right person to tell this story?—this course will introduce students to the fundamentals and practicalities of development and pitching. Through a collaborative workshop process and by using their existing scripts and projects, students will engage in table reads, script analysis, and verbal and written pitch exercises. Students will learn about and create the elements that will make their particular projects and stories resonate and become marketable. Through this process, students will also learn how to develop a project into a pitch package and how to pitch that project and engage with the gatekeepers of the myriad platforms where audiences seek stories on screen. Course work is designed to guide students in how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their ideas, scripts, treatments, and projects and to explore what platforms may best suit their project and why. Guest workshops with industry professionals include writer pitches and understanding talent representation in the entertainment industry. The semester’s work will culminate in a final pitch presentation—an essential skill for all writers, filmmakers, directors, and producers. Whether pitching a colleague to collaborate on your project or pitching a studio or network to finance your project, students will learn how to ensure that a script or project is ready to pitch, how to understand studio and network needs, how to establish industry contacts, how to be a skilled communicator, how to understand and grapple with changing audience tastes, and, overall, how to sell an idea. Students must have a completed script or treatment for which they wish to develop a pitch.