Day 5 Assignments

[Frances Emerson]

POWER PLAYERS LESSON FIVE

FRAN’S HIGH CONCEPT/ELEVATOR PITCH

WHAT I LEARNED: Taking a shot this is what I need to get my steamboat script to an interested producer. At least I got goosebumps when reading it back.

MY HIGH CONCEPT:

For the captains, it’s a lifelong—heated–rivalry that culminates in a dangerous three-day race (up the Mississippi River) aboard the celebrated steamboats Natchez and Robert E. Lee.

For Charles, it’s a coming-of-age story that <font color=”#ae0605″>answers</font> the burning question: can he be the successful newspaper reporter his father believes, one day, he can be for their family business?

And for the hopeless romantic, it is a love story: can Charles find true love again after the death of his beloved fiancé?

ELEVATOR PITCH

My script, based on the legendary, true story of the Great Steamboat Race Between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee, and the budding career of one, Charles Welbourne Knapp, one of the most celebrated newspapermen in American History who tells it, is a tale of love and a lifelong rivalry, studded with characters the most bankable stars in Hollywood would kill to portray.<s></s>

[julie Beckett]

Julie’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is different ways of framing the premise.

High Concept:

An old-school police force is forced to work with the progressive, civilian DART team to resolve domestic related cases peacefully.

Elevator Pitch

I’m writing a TV series
about civilian response teams that respond to domestic issues instead of
the police. It’s based on successful pilot programs in Denver and
Oakland.

[Michael O’Keefe]

Lesson 5: High Concepts and Elevator Pitches – Assignment

Mike O – High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is the importance of being succinct while marketing your script to producers and managers.

1. To find your main hook, tell us what the big picture explanation of your lead character’s journey is.

*A gifted painter finds her father too late, discovers her mother’s deception after the fact, and is left to reconcile and come to terms while falling love at Christmas.

* Use of Dilemma: A father’s posthumous love, the deception of a recently deceased mother, leaves their only child alone to reconcile and forgive while forging her career and finding love at Christmas.

===================================================================

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

* Elevator pitch:

A gifted artist, who converses with her father’s ghost, discovers her muse has a home address!

Hope is quickly extinguished as his Christmas card is trumped by a certified letter informing Brooklyn she is the executor of her father’s estate.

Brooklyn’s legal obligation turns into a series of life-changing revelations.

At her father’s cabin, a stairwell lined with photographs reveals the fact her father has been following Brooklyn’s life since the divorce.

In a closet, the reason for his absence is found in a shoe-box filled with old letters. In her mother’s handwriting, the words: “Return to Sender” is written across each of the envelopes.

The sickening discovery is followed by the sound of the doorbell.

Brooklyn finds love standing on her father’s porch in the form of a man and his two sons: in for the holidays, unaware of her father’s death.

[David Harper]

David Harper’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is that I need to make sure I have the hooks front and center when I have an opportunity to do a quick pitch.

High Concept: A man fights to save himself his town when his ex-con father stages a dangerous bank heist in the middle of a wildfire evacuation.

Elevator pitch: It’s a story about a man trying to establish a relationship with his estranged, ex-con father, and how he has to choose between saving his father and saving his town when his father starts a wildfire just to stage a bank heist.