Eric Heisserer On Pitching Your Script

Screenwriter and director Eric Heisserer on Twitter today gave lessons and stories about pitching your script:

- All right, I'm going to be tossing around lessons learned. When I use the word "you" I mean "me" as it's what I've discovered. YMMV.

- Let's make some delineations. There are pitches of original material you invented, and pitches on properties/assignments, two diff beasts.

- If it's your own idea and you're pitching it, that is a crazy steep climb. Because the buyers will wonder why you don't just write it.

- What you need to get in the room with anyone at that point is a super strong script of something else they've already loved.

- Even then, pitching your own ideas first and hoping to get paid to write them is leaving money on the table. Specs = always bigger $$.

- So with that out of the way, let's focus on what 90+% of pitching will be for you: Writing assignments.

- From Gary Whitta: And it makes more sense to just write it - greater commitment, but far greater chance to sell and for more money than a pitch.

- So there is a writing gig up for grabs out there and you want it. Your agent or manager or friend at the front desk can get you in the room.

- Or maybe you have a general meeting with the producer and you use that opportunity to say you're crazy about X and want to pitch them.

- Sounds silly to mention, but you have to really care about it. You have to know why you want to write this thing vs your own stuff.

- Even if one of the big reasons is, "I'm terrified someone else will screw it up. I'd rather be the one, if it comes to that."

- But what will be your guide from the start is your motivation for this story. What do you want to say through this particular voice/world?

- That's a huge help going into the pitch. The next step is to share how that motivation is personal to you. How it connects to your life.

- That's what you lead with. Why is this personal to you, and how does it connect to the character(s) of this property? What is its soul?

- This means being able to talk about yourself, sometimes sharing traumatic experiences, with a room full of strangers. Tough.

- But binding yourself and your passions or fears to a thing increases both your purpose and its value. Producers want that connection.

- Now I'm going to keep going by talking about the particular beast of movie pitching, but I've done TV dev for 8 years and that's tough too.

- If you're swinging for something even halfway cool in this town, expect it to be a "bake-off" (lots of writers pitching).

- You are not really in the game with the other writers. That is the tragic mistake I used to make. Your big opponent is yourself. Not them.

- Focus on what you love about the property, be it an adaptation, remake, or sequel. Share what it means to you; what it does so well.

- Now here are some really crazy specifics, based on tragic blunders by yours truly.

- All the preamble talk can be about how you identify with the story, and how that translates, but when you get into the actual pitch...

- Hit the milestone at around five minutes in and declare it. For me that's the "end of act one" moment, but it can be the big sequence, etc.

- The thing that launches the rest of the movie, whatever that is, gets announced. "That's our engine for act two." And here's why you say it:

- Producers/execs have sat through pitches for 20 minutes only to hear the writer say at the end, "That's the backstory. Now, we open on..."

- This is one of their horrible fears: That you don't know where to start pitching.

- Seed some "mile markers" in your pitch to help everyone know where in the story they are. It's a great relief to them, trust me.

- Next: visual aids. Cards. Posterboard. Maps. Diagrams. All workable. Keep something in mind when using material like this in a pitch...

- If you put too much on them for your buyers to read, they'll be reading and not listening to your story. So be visual, not wordy.

- Characters in a pitch. Often tricky describing them. Some people love it when you offer casting ideas, so they see the actor in the movie.

- I can tell you I had a pitch completely crumble on me only because the studio exec HATED an actor I used as my template for the lead. Pow.

- Try to avoid: Physical description, unless it's germane to the story. Don't bother with that crap, it's superficial 99% of the time.

 - Instead, think of one behavioral trait that paints a bigger picture of a person. A bad habit. A cute sentimentality. What real people do.

- "He's the kind of guy who rants about the president but never voted." "Birthdays and holidays are a big deal to her."

- That sort of thing.

- More hard lessons I've the scars to prove: Make it a discussion. Don't feel it's a stand-up routine. Let them ask questions. Ask them ones.

- I spent way too long making my pitch simply "here are the beats of the story." That's not what they want to hear. Crazy, I know.

- They want the story -- they really do -- but have you ever managed to pay attention to someone telling you the events that happen in a film?

- It can be really... dry. Sadly. Even if the events are really cool.

- You gotta keep thinking to yourself, "How does this moment make me FEEL?" And share THAT with your buyers in the room.

- So in a weird way, it's almost like telling someone about a crazy thing you just lived through. Yourself.

- To get all chart-y, it helps to go between very specific details and broadstrokes. Give me two mental photographs then talk subtext.

- Show me the plumbing of the pitch. Don't go into detail the HOW of that epic shootout, but the WHY of it.

- The more I understand what's in the walls of the house you're describing, the less I worry about the decorations.

- Just dip into some really great bit of description now and then so I get eye candy, and feel the movie you see. A little goes a long way

- And the more you talk about the main characters, the better. If it's a sequel, the question in their minds is "Will [star] love this?"

- Something a few of you have already mentioned: This is a multi-tier process. You don't start by pitching to the top decision-maker.

- You will be pitching the same thing again and again to people at increasingly higher levels, all who want to hear what you told the others.

- You're like Bruce Lee in GAME OF DEATH pitching to get to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

- And because you'll be pitching it a lot, practice it a lot. Get it down to fifteen minutes or less. Leave a ton of room for Q&A.

- Annnnd I see some of you already just said that. But yeah. Make it shorter than you think it should be, they can always ask you follow-ups.

- Sometimes you'll get the sense that the people you pitch to will simply re-pitch your story to their boss. Try to avoid that. How?

- End the meetings by saying you'd love to get back in the room and pitch to anyone else who needs to hear it. Be direct with them.

- Won't always work but if you ask that to their faces you can come back and help keep the pitch's integrity vs a bad translation by execs.

- Does your pitch have a villain? Find a way to say "Here's why I agree with the villain" and mean it. Make us feel s/he could be a hero.

- ...in some other version of the movie.

- Next up: References and inside language. You know what can save your hide? A little homework on what movies/TV/lit the exec loves.

- Find out (thru your reps or your own questions in a call/mtg) what posters they hang on their walls. What they couldn't put down at home.

- That helps you to know what shorthand to build into your pitch. Not to pander to them, but to give them emotional anchors to your story.

- From John Spaits: The longer I work, the more I find that looser pitches win. You can sabotage yourself by working out too much.

- From John Spaits: You have to leave room for the development team to play in the sandbox with you. Let it still be fluid.

- And finally, a reminder: It's a scary, exhausting, nerve-wracking thing, to pitch for a story you love. It's tough. It's also the job.

- Don't be hard on yourself afterward. Practice pushing through social awkwardness in non-pitch scenarios. At parties. With friends.

- As scary as it may be to put your heart on your sleeve and say, "This is me, this is my heart in this story," talent does this all the time.

- We are the first to do it, but then we're telling people to follow our footsteps. The director does the same dance, to slightly diff music.

- Actors REALLY do it, in an all-in kind of way that still boggles my mind. And they're relying on your commitment from way back.

- Okay, with those trial-by-fire lessons learned, I'll end with this, my worst pitching horror stories.

- I once pitched to an exec who got up mid-pitch to use his private adjacent restroom, but left the door cracked for me to "keep pitching."

- Yeah, that was a moment of humiliation right there.

- I once pitched on a comic book adaptation using other successful CB movies as touchstones. Their reply at end: "That won't win us Oscars."

- I once pitched to someone at Smokehouse Pics and mid-pitch was interrupted by GEORGE EFFING CLOONEY, totally wiped my brain.

- Once, my only way to crack a tough property and make it personal was by putting it in a very different setting. So I start my windup..

- ME: "We open in [setting]." EXEC: "I hate that setting. Next?" ME: *crushed silence*

- From Gary Whitta:  It’s the toughest thing, many of us are writers because we’re introverts, but you have to be the opposite in the room.

- And let me reiterate: There are as many ways to work in this business as there are writers. But these are my lessons based on my path.

- And in my experience, feature pitching is all about writing assignments. (TV writing is a different ballgame.)

- Some studios (be it TV or feature) love original ideas and buy those pitches, to make it their own. TO MAKE IT THEIR OWN *spooky music*

- I pitched and sold an original idea to a studio that then got warped and twisted into something else

- That can happen. It has happened. It will happen. You have to keep swinging and act as if it won't happen again to you.