Lesson 6

[Eden De Ruse-Moore]

Eden De Ruse-Moore High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment: To make your concept short and dynamic, is NOT an easy task but a must!

High Concept:
Beside America’s first female President is a homerun king with a diaper bag.

• Dilemma – Married to POTUS has it’s perks but being known as the nation’s First Daddy is NOT one of them.

• Main Conflict – A former Yankee ballplayer is determined to prove to a nation he can care for a baby and remain faithful to his wife.

• What’s at stake? If this ballplayer cannot turn Babygate around he may lose his family and it will cost his wife her job.

• Goal/Unique Opposition – How do you keep your “man-card” when you’re constantly told to get in touch with your feminine side.

Elevator Pitch:

I’m finishing up a story that answers the question if America ever had a pregnant President who would take care of her baby?

• This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by  Eden De Ruse-Moore.

[dave korr]

If the slugger gets frustrated, he can cut down the white house cherry tree with his bat.

[dave korr]

Dave Korr’s query letter for lesson 7:

“Your friggin’ shark ate my mom, my sister, and almost got Granny!”

SHARK STANK is a serial action sit-com – like JAWS meets FALLOUT – set on a slowly sinking mega-yacht, where a cute and klutzy Do-Gooder must battle: a vengeful Schwarzenegger wannabe, his sadistic, drugged-up Fart Shark, and Satan himself, to save her hot and often-naked teen pals from getting eaten – and not in the good way.

BIO: seeing JAWS 22 times helped me to outwit an attacking shark, who then followed me down the shoreline for a mile and a Happy Meal.

If you like my concept, I’d be happy to send you the pilot script. Thanks.

Best,

Dave Korr
973-901-8181
David.korr@gmail.com

[William Whelan]

William Whelan — High concept/Elevator Pitch
What I learned doing this assignment is to formulate my High concept and Elevator Pitch.
High Concept: How does a Mafia Princess break with the family to become a sophisticated lady when the family pushes back with a vengeance,
Elevator Pitch: My screenplay is Pygmalion meets Goodfellas with a dash of Thelma and Louise.

[anna harper]

Anna Harper High Concept and Elevator Pitch
What I learned in this lesson; the information helped me create my best high concept and elevator pitch to date.
High Concept
Telepathic communication transforms the lives of a bereft teenage boy and a homeless dog.
Elevator Pitch
I’m excited as I’m finishing up a final polish on my Christmas movie featuring a traumatized teenager and a dog with telepathic powers.

[Hiram Taylor]

HIRAM TAYLOR – HIGH CONCEPT/ELEVATOR PITCH

What I learned is the method to create these types of pitches. I have been missing the boat on elevator pitches, they always land like a dud. I hope I get better at it now. Mine is still too long.

MY MAIN HOOK is “People’s bodies turn into light and disappear into the 4th dimension where their souls are eaten as a food source.

MAIN CHARACTER’S JOURNEY – From skeptical news reporter who investigates fake religious hoxes to true believer when she witnesses people turning into light and vanishing.

DILEMMA: When her boyfriend’s body turns into light and vanishes she must follow him into the 4th Dimension to save him from the Soul Eaters.

WHAT’S AT STAKE: Her boyfriend’s soul will be devoured by the Soul Eaters unless she travels into the 4th Dimension to save him.

GOAL/UNIQUE OPPOSITION: Can she save her boyfriend from the evil Soul eaters on the 4th dimension who steal humans from the 3rd Dimension as their food source?

ELEVATOR PITCH: ANSWER THE QUESTION “WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON? ” is “ I just finished a horror screenplay about a woman who travels to the 4th Dimension to save her boyfriend from Soul Eaters who steal humans as their food source.

[Joyce Davidson]

Joyce’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment: I like to answer several lessons at a time because it keeps the goals in my mind.

High Concept: Bertram Zed, a James Bond wanna-be, becomes the agent to save the world from a doomsday device.
• Dilemma – Bertie was a great accountant, but his desire to live a more exciting life seems unlikey. He is not the man his father is, another secret agent who is currently in prison in Spamovia. Can Bertie develop courage, intelligence, and stamina to stop the evil men who will use the device to master the world?

• Main Conflict – MI6 barely trains Bertie Zed. Nevertheless, he flies to Spamovia where Warlick has possession of a device that interrupts all technical systems: drones, computers, phones, planes, everything.

• What’s at stake? His father’s life and the fate of the world hangs on the new spy Bertram Zed, 009 and 1/2, a young man who has never jumped from a plane, wind sailed over a bridge, or faced such evil men as Warlick and Ivan Metropolis.

[Michael Wallace]

Michael Wallace’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is to reduce your story down to one compelling line.

Dilemma – The Executive must choose between saving himself or a kid and the love of his life.

Main Conflict Inside Traders vs Outside Losers

What’s at stake? Might vs Right

Goal/Unique Opposition – The Executive finally sacrifices himself to do what is right.

Elevator Pitch – I’ve written a screenplay about a hot shot Wall Steet. Executive who inadvertently helps a kid expose the hypocrisy of Wall Street.

[Joseph Waldygo]

HIGH CONCEPT: Female ex-military squad uses stealth and cool gadgets to steal cash from dangerous cartel drug dealers to save a veteran’s shelter from foreclosure.

ELEVATOR PITCH: The story is like Jill Reacher meets Robin Hood, except Jill is a disgraced war hero now private investigator addicted to pain meds and cheap booze.

• Dilemma – How to save Megan’s life and the shelter after she is captured.
•
• Main Conflict – Tory stealing cash and outwitting drug dealers.
•
• What’s at stake? Megan’s life, Tory’s life, others, the shelter being sold.
•
• Goal/Unique Opposition – There doesn’t seem to be any way to save both Megan and the shelter if they give the Cartel back the drugs and money.

[Eden De Ruse-Moore]

Eden De Ruse-Moore High Concept/Elevator Pitch (rewrite)
What I learned doing this assignment: Your elevator pitch should be short and not filled with lots of descriptive words —
1. High Concept:
When POTUS reveals she’s pregnant her husband a former Yankee takes on the role of Mother Goose in the White House.
2. Most interesting way possible:
Dilemma – Married to POTUS has it’s perks but being known as the nation’s First Daddy is NOT one of them.
Main Conflict – A former Yankee ballplayer is determined to prove to a nation he can care for a baby and remain faithful to his wife.
What’s at stake? If this ballplayer cannot get a grip on his new identity, he may lose his family and jeopardize his wife’s administration.
Goal/Unique Opposition – How can this former Yankee keep his “man-card” when he’s constantly told to get in touch with your feminine side.
3. Elevator Pitch:
1. I’m finishing up a story about an Ex-Yankee who becomes the First Daddy, juggling diapers and diplomacy in the White House.”
It’s: The American President meets Three Men and A Baby

[Ian Patrick Williams]

Ian’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch
What I learned doing this assignment is to have both kinds of pitches ready

To find your main hook, give us what is most unique about your lead character’s journey from a big picture perspective.
HIGH CONCEPT
A rookie detective insists on immediate action against an upcoming terrorist threat while his superiors slowly follow protocol to respond

How can you tell it in the most interesting way possible?
Dilemma: A brash young Black detective is caught between following orders and going it alone in order to stop an upcoming race war

Main Conflict: He has circumstantial evidence that a terrorist threat is imminent, but his Commander and FBI insist on slow-walking the official response

What’s at stake?
White supremacists have raised to a fever pitch the call for a new Civil War

Goal/Unique Opposition: Stop the triggering event that they have planned before it’s too late.

ELEVATOR PITCH
“I’ve written a script that asks: How does one man stop an imminent neo-Nazi event that will trigger a race war across America?”

[Eden De Ruse-Moore]

Fantastic way you described your concept. You nailed the elevator pitch.

[Paul McGregor]

Paul's High Concept & Elevator Pitch

5. What I learned from this assignment was how useful it was to have the Dilemma/Main Conflict/What's at stake?/Goal-Unique Opposition prompts. They really did help to get to the core. But it can still be tough to get it down to one sentence.
1. Most unique: What is most unique about the lead character is how this uneducated man took on the bankers and lawyers and won and how he fought like a bear to defend his family against a junkie son-in-law.
2. High Concept: Lawyers, bankers and a junkie son-in-law are out to destroy his family, but he shows it's a very bad idea to get between a bear and its cubs.
Elevator Pitch: Frank is retiring from his job as a logger and looking forward to time with his grand-children. But when he discovers his son-in-law is doing drugs, his world begins to crumble. Faced with bankers and lawyers trying to foreclose his daughter's house, and debt-collecting drug-dealers threatening her life, Frank has to learn new skills fast. He uses those skills to defeat the lawyers and bankers, and then turns to old logging skills to deal with the son-in-law.

END

• This reply was modified 11 months ago by  Paul McGregor.
• This reply was modified 11 months ago by  Paul McGregor.
• This reply was modified 11 months ago by  Paul McGregor.

[Rebecca Sukle]

Rebecca’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch
What I learned from this assignment is…brain storming on my own by using this method. Later I did the same with the AI prompt that produced 5 pitches and comps where I found one good comp but needed to combine and tweak two of th pitches. AI can be a helpful brainstorming activity, but it takes human creativity to go to a higher level.
Many Wives and Lives
Inspired by the resilient wives of writer Sherwood Anderson, this historical drama spotlights gender inequality and female empowerment, offering compelling roles for top talent.
High Concept: In a repressive era where women relied on their husbands, a educated business savvy woman defies societal norms to secure her children’s future after her tycoon husband abandons business and family.
Based on:
1. To find your main hook, give us what is most unique about your lead character’s journey from a big picture perspective: How can a wife and mother survive the loss of business, wealth, and her husband in a male dominated world?
2. How can you tell it in the most interesting way possible?
Dilemma: After achieving, with his wife’s help, success and wealth in business, the husband wants to chuck it all for a chance at literary fame; but how will she and the children survive the loss in a male dominated world?
Main Conflict: The woman wants her husband to meet his family and business obligations; he only wants escape.
What’s at stake? The future welfare of her and the children.
Goal/Unique: She might own a company but not allowed to head it or sit on the board.
Opposition: She goes outside the bounds of polite society to invest her money, time, and talents to partner with a successful courtesan and brothel owner in a high stakes gaming and womanizing retreat for wealthy men.
3. Using the 10 Components of Marketability, what is your Elevator Pitch?
High Concept: In a repressive era where women relied on their husbands, a educated business savvy woman defies societal norms to secure her children’s future after her tycoon husband abandons business and family.
New Series Pilot High Concept with help of AI: An educated business savvy woman challenges the rigid patriarchal societal norms of the early 20th-century as she copes with her tycoon husband’s deteriorating sanity and plans for her and their children’s survival.

[Janis Pryor]

Janis A. Pryor High Concept/Elevator Pitch
I learned how to make this an easier task with the components of marketability.

Tell us your High Concept and Elevator Pitch.
1. To find your main hook, give us what is most unique about your lead character’s journey from a big picture perspective.

The female lead has to come to terms with her psychic abilities to stay in touch with the love of her life who drowned in a boating accident.

2. How can you tell it in the most interesting way possible?
• Dilemma…Will these two people ever get together?!
• Main Conflict…female lead must face the reality of her psychic abilities.
• What’s at stake…the authenticity of her life.
• Goal/Unique Opposition…The opposition is twofold: the ignorance of the public, and the male lead’s sister who’s threatened by the female lead.

3. Using the 10 Components of Marketability, what is your Elevator Pitch?
Haven’t you ever wondered if there’s any kind of life after death? This is the true love story of how one unusual woman, born with a veil over her face, has to accept her psychic abilities to stay in touch with the love of her life who drowned in boating accident. This is Ghost for adults! (This could be the elevator pitch. Add this to the next sentences and it could be the high concept.)
A highly intelligent, confident man watched her for twenty years before speaking to her. She asks a friend about him, and flipped a switch. The next day he speaks to her, and a flood of synchronicities brings them together. He asks her months after his death to “Tell our story. Tell what was and what was meant to be.” Writing the story changed her life.

4. After you answer questions 1 – 3, use AI to brainstorm other possible ways to generate a High Concept for your project. How does AI work with a true story?

[Pamela Milton]

Pamela Milton – High Concept/ Pitch
What I learned – Less is more. But it’s difficult to create an attention grabbing pitch when restricted to twenty-five words or less.
Elevator pitch – Two eras, one town. A 1934 heist and a1980 investigation collide, revealing connections that changes everything for the enigmatic town of Yesterday.
Dilemma – Tempest must save her friends, the Chutney gang, from her ex-fiancé and protect their identity at the same time McKenna is trying to expose them to save herself from her boss.
Main Conflict – Do what is right for those you care about even if there is cost to yourself.
Goal/ Unique opposition – Tempest must try to protect your friends and the town’s which has provided for them for decades from her ex-finance’ while McKenna is trying to save herself from her own boss and his armed heavies as he tries to steal the town’s money.
Not sure if I was suppose to use the AI prompts for each of the different sections (dilemma, conflict stake, goal) or just to generate the Elevate pitch.

[Hiram Taylor]

Hiram Taylor – High Concept Elevator Pitch
What I learned is how to get the high concept down in a short concise sentence.
Beyond the Fourth Dimension : A reporter and a cult leader join forces to escape a terrifying alternate dimension feeding on stolen souls. (Comps: Hellraiser, Stranger Things)

[Michael HARRIS]

Michael Harris’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned during this assignment is that attracting a potential producer is more easily accomplished through interesting hooks that are salable than through telling them the story.

High Concept: Two boys from different worlds unite to uncover Al Capone's hidden empire in their lakeside town during the Great Depression, facing danger and forging an unbreakable bond.

Elevator Pitch:
Against economic hardship, two boys uncover a web of Capone's deceit, uniting to save their families and lakeside community.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 4 weeks ago by  Michael HARRIS.

[David Ennocenti]

David Ennocenti High Concept and Elevator Pitch
What I learned doing this assignment: To be concise and at the same time dynamic. Catch the eye of a producer rather than tell a story.
HIGH CONCEPT: World War Two’s greatest sniper; a Russian woman from the University of Kiev.
THE HOOK: “No soldier escapes her crosshairs.”
BIGGEST DILEMMA: The protagonist has to overcome objections from her own army.
MAIN CONFLICT: To drive the invading German forces from her Russian homeland
THE STAKES: The future of her Russian homeland. Being free from Nazi rule.
THE OPPOSITION: She has to deal with opposition not only from enemy soldiers but also from her own army. Her goal is to be the best sniper.
ELEVATOR PITCH: When Nazi Germany invades her Russian homeland, a 24-year-old University of Kiev student enlists in the Russian Red Army Rifle Division as a sniper. She has to overcome the objections of her own army while fighting the enemy.

[Sandra Fox-Sohner]

Sandy: High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned: It is extremely difficult to encapsulate the exciting parts of my screenplay into just a few words. You have to whittle it down to its very essence.

Main hook: How can one woman launch a tidal wave of major social change in a world where women have no voice?

High Concept: A young 19th-century math genius teaches herself higher math but soon discovers that her only career option is marriage.

Elevator Pitch: I'm just finishing up a true story about a savvy young 19th-century math genius who bravely uses her wits to become the first female professor in male-dominated Europe, opening the door for generations of women.

Comps:

The Theory of Everything meets Little Women

Hidden Figures meets The Man Who Knew Infinity

• This reply was modified 10 months, 2 weeks ago by  Sandra Fox-Sohner.

[Lyn Embree]

Lyn's High Concept/Elevator Pitch

What I learned doing this assignment is there are multiple ways to come up with an elevator pitch using hooks, and to keep playing with it until it's something really exciting.

1. Dilemma:

You’re a spoiled teenager living on a planet that will soon die thanks to previous generations. Do you party it up and go down in a blaze of glory before the shit hits the fan? Or do you battle your supernatural shape-shifting aunt for the chance to save us all?

Main Conflict:

A teenage girl has been chosen to take the place of a goddess whose job is to protect the people and nature of Colombia. Will she accept and leave her oblivious, spoiled American life behind?

What's at stake?:

The fate of Colombia, its people and its environment, lies in the hands of a nihilistic Colombian-American teenager with a death wish who has no idea she’s a powerful shape-shifting goddess.

Goal/Unique Opposition:

A 17-year-old nihilistic teenager with a death wish must save Colombia from climate extinction before her 18th birthday with supernatural powers she doesn’t know she has yet.

3. Elevator Pitch:

I’m finishing up a story that asks the question, “Would a nihilistic, spoiled American teen with a death wish choose to save Colombia from climate extinction if she knew she had supernatural powers?”

AI Pitch:

A nihilistic teen with a death wish battles her shapeshifting goddess aunt to save Colombia from climate collapse in a mystical jungle sky realm.

Comps:

"Pan's Labyrinth" meets "Avatar"

"The Hunger Games" meets "Doctor Strange"

"Moana" meets "The Shape of Water"

"Harry Potter" meets "Apocalypto"

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Lyn Embree.