Day 5 Assignments

[ROBERT Ingalls]

Rob’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

1. Main Hook (Big Picture of Lead Character’s Journey):

A gutsy widowed farmer’s wife in the 1930s Dust Bowl era fights corrupt and ruthless men to protect her family and save her farm, eventually becoming the Matriarch of a huge farming dynasty in California.

2. Tell it in the Most Interesting Way (using the 4 ways):

– Dilemma: Stay and fight for survival or return to the East Coast and start life anew.

– Main Conflict: The man who raped Molly 17 years ago is now the town’s banker, ready to foreclose on her farm and destroy her livelihood.

– What’s at Stake? Keeping the farm and providing for her family after the death of her farmer husband.

– Goal/Unique Opposition: This isn’t just about a weather storm that’s brewing, or about the Mob and New York Bankers as they descend down on her and her farm, it’s about the storm that Molly is about to create.

3. Using the 10 Components of Marketability, what is your Elevator Pitch?

(A Great Role for a Bankable Actor – with complex supporting cast that talent would love)

– Despite the violent mob and ruthless New York Bankers, despite the approaching Dust Storms of the 1930s, the real force of nature is Molly, an uneducated widowed farmer’s wife, forced to protect her family and farm in a man’s world.

[Warren Goldstein]

Robert

Can’t wait to see your story on the screen.

Warren

[Mary Emmick]

Mary Emmick’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is that Hollywood operates on very short pitches and the very best of them are one sentence hooks called “High Concepts.” Having a simple way to deliver your hook in an elevator pitch can make a chance meeting pay off in a big way.

High Concept

DON’T LOOK AWAY, ISABEL: A teenage girl from a small, farm town struggles to find meaning and love during COVID-19.

Elevator Pitch

DON’T LOOK AWAY, ISABEL: I turned a song I wrote called Look Away into a story.

[John Stimson]

John Stimson’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

4. What I learned doing this assignment is having a strong marketable hook is the key for your elevator pitch.

1. A charismatic. Handsome and respect engineering professor is a bomber for hire for attacks targets for his benefactor, who is a political powerbroker.

2. Dilemma—The Main Character is the Anti-Hero. Outwardly he has everything going for him, but inwardly, he is a sociopath and absent of dilemma in this story.

Main Conflict—The heroic young cop, on the other hand, is conflicted over whether he is pursuing the villain for vengeance or justice.

What’s at Stake?—When interrogated, the villain reveals himself to be remorseless about the lives he takes and that he is a nihilist.

Goal/Unique Opposition—The villain/professor is also a domestic security policy advisor at a think tank, devising scenarios against people just like him.

3. He is an admired and respected college professor.

He is a domestic security policy advisor.

He is “The Terrorist.”

[Lenore]

Lenore Bechtel’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

From this assignment I learned that I should definitely memoize a one-sentence high concept and a one-sentence elevator pitch to be prepared to tell anyone what “Sweetie Heaven” is all about.

High Concept:

How can Meredith sing her own style and not alienate her Sweet Adeline family and remain a virgin and not lose her horny boyfriend?

Elevator Pitch:

“Sweetie Heaven” supports chastity until marriage while spoofing barbershop zealots as “Music Man” meets “Strictly Ballroom” in this low-budget, merry musical.

[Laura Hyler]

Laura Hyler’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch 5/27/22

Lesson 5

Power Players

What I learned doing this assignment is that it is easier to come up with a logline or high concept than it is to do an elevator pitch.

1. My high concept is:

A Caucasian widow must learn how to handle racism, or risk losing the love of her life.

2. My elevator pitch is:

I’m finishing a story that answers the question-can a Caucasian widow and her new love interest, an African man, overcome racial tensions and conflicts internally and externally that threaten their relationship?

[Robert Bland]

Bob Bland… High Concept/Elevator Pitch.

What learned? The necessity of boiling down a story into a brief sentence that can be easily spoken and understood.

(Note: I do not believe this is a “high concept” piece. But I do believe it is a very strong concept about confronting the wounds from our past so that we can move forward.)

1. Main hook… big picture of main character’s journey: Can a traumatized homeless vet reunite a decade later with his long-lost love?

2. Tell it in the most interesting way… It’s about a traumatized homeless vet and his former fiancé, both damaged by their past, who meet a decade later, try to heal, and love again.

3. Elevator pitch: I’m finishing up a story that answers the question “Can two damaged people once deeply in love but held back by their past reconnect a decade later, heal, and be in love again?”

[Warren Goldstein]

Bob

Sounds really interesting and would love to see this on the screen. Harry Met Sally on steroids. LOL Actually this happened to me in real life (not the homeless vet part) and reconnected with the love of my life 30 years later! I love stories like this. I can relate.

Thanks

Warren

[Melanie Forchetti]

Melanie’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is that pitching your project requires wearing a completely different hat. You have to get back to why you wrote the script in the first place and harness that inspiration for your pitch.

My High Concept is:

She finally got a book deal for her new thriller but a killer is re-enacting her every word.

My Elevator Pitch is:

I’m finishing up a story about how an author’s thriller becomes the recipe for her own death.

[Nancy Lucas]

Nancy Lucas: High Concept/ Elevator Pitch

What I learned in this assignment is that the better you know your characters and story – the better you are able to be confident in crafting the pitch. The depth of the character – when put into a dilemma that makes the story interesting, with an interesting twist- and ending–will catch a producer’s attention.

High Concept: How does a big city procedural lawyer overcome his need for order when the most import and decisions that call for a succesfuloutcome are thrown into chaos demanding decisions on the fly

Elevator Pitch: A big city procedural lawyer going for partnership in the firm, is sidelined when he is tasked with planning his best friend’s wedding, who is already a partner in the firm, and failing in getting the job done- but learning some procedures can’t be followed if you want the desired outcome.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Nancy Lucas.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Nancy Lucas.

[Gordon Cowan]

Gordon’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is: finding the story’s high concept and formulating a 30 second pitch that defines the journey in an impactive way. And to keep refining, and refining, and refining.

1. The big picture explanation of lead character’s journey: Hardwired

Can innocence survive sheer evil?

Can an innocent analyst survive a psychopath’s hired assassins when mistakenly sent a file that outlines his heinous plot to kill hundreds?

2. How can you tell it in the most interesting way possible?

Dilemma: Mistakenly receives a dangerous file that pegs the protagonist for instant death

Main Conflict: How to survive the mission of an ultra rich psychopath to keep secret what the hero inadvertently received?

What’s at stake? Life or death of the hero. Life or death of hundreds of others who are the subject of the villain’s plot should he succeed. Can innocence survive sheer evil?

Goal/Unique Opposition: How to get the file to someone who can be trusted in a way that is survivable. Can the hero trust the first assassin who comes, who says, “trust me”? Can the psychopath be stopped in time? Who to trust when money from an ultra rich guy can corrupt anyone, even police, FBI?

3. What is your Elevator Pitch?

Question: What are you working on?

Answer: Just wrapping up a final edit to the latest screenplay.

Question: What’s it about?

Imagine, if you mistakenly receive a file you knew instantly when reading marked you for death, what would you do? You are a private, good person. Obviously you’re not trained to defend against hardened, lethal assassins who would arrive any moment to retrieve that file. And if you are truly a good person, you have to get this file to authorities. But who can be trusted when the authorities may be corrupt? What would you do? How do you survive?

[Warren Goldstein]

Day 5 LESSON 5 High Concepts and Elevator Pitches Assignment 2022-06-15 Friends in High Places

What I learned doing this assignment: To make the pitch concise, straightforward, and to offer interest so to attract talent and a sellable profitable genre.

1. The big picture explanation of your lead character’s journey is:

Based on certain true people and events a clairvoyant college student must allow a former Cognitive Research Lab scientist now professor use his “gift” to alter “memories of the future” to stop a murder, changing his mother-in-law’s fate, but makes his wife become the predicted victim instead protected by his unseen spiritual Friends in High Places.

2. How can you tell it in the most interesting way possible?

Dilemma – A clairvoyant alters pending visions of “memories of
the future” to stop the murder of his mother-in-law to change her lethal fate
but by doing so causes his wife instead now to become the envisioned
victim.<div>

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Main
Conflict – What if a clairvoyant changing
his mother-in-law’s lethal fate of getting murdered by a serial killer results
in having his wife instead become the envisioned victim?

<div><div>

What’s
at stake? If a clairvoyant is able to
stop his mother-in-law’s envisioned serial killer murder will it then
cause his wife to die instead?

Goal/Unique
Opposition How can a clairvoyant stop his
mother-in-law’s envisioned murder without making his wife become the
victim instead?

3. Using the 10 Components of Marketability, what is your Elevator Pitch?

Based on certain true events, a clairvoyant college student allows a former Cognitive Research Lab scientist use of his “gift” to alter “memories of the future” to prove his theory, “cause does not have to precede effect”, changing fate, preempting a murder, but instead his wife becomes the envisioned victim while protected by his unseen spiritual Friends in High Places.

Or,

“Dreamscape” (1984 – Kevin Bacon) meets “Zodiac” (2007 Jake Gyllenhaal) meets “Back to the Future” (1985 Michael J. Fox) meets “Somewhere in Time” (1980 Christopher Reeve).

4. Answer the question “What I learned doing this assignment is…?” and put it at the top of your work.

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• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by  Warren Goldstein. Reason: needed to add known flicks meeting one another