Lesson 8

[Jack Young]

Jack Young’s Pitch Fest Pitch

1. Tell us your credibility.

Screenwriter who has written over 40 screenplays and filmmaker with two feature films streaming on Amazon Prime who has had a paid rewrite assignment and is professionally represented by a manager in New York, previously represented by agent.

2. Tell us your genre and title.

GENRE: Sci-fi/fantasy TITLE: “STREAM”

3. What is your one or two sentence hook?

A married man must die to enter a strange energy stream to save his family and mankind.

4. Please give your one or two sentence answer to each of these questions:

What is the budget range? 10 – 15 Million per episode (Average)

What actors do you like for the lead roles? None at this time

Give me the acts of the story: (Acts of the Pilot Episode)

Act 1: The hero’s ordinary world. Here we find Michael grown up and a family man with a wife (Diane) and a son (Nick) and get a glimpse of his ordinary life. He’s living in a world of dangerous rioters and a no-birth crisis that is ravaging the world. He works a bank in the Foreclosure Department with Kristy, the woman with whom he’s been cheating on his wife. At work, he witnesses an old woman commit suicide in his office because her house is being foreclosed. The police respond to the incident as if there’s an active shooter. When they find out that it was just some “old lady that went nuts”, they pack up and leave. This is the kind of world Michael lives in.

Act 2: After Michael discovers that he’s lost all his money in a stock deal gone bad, he retreats to a local bar. Kristy arrives to bring bad news that he’s fired and the FBI is on the way to arrest him. During the arrest by the FBI, he has a stroke. At the hospital, he finds out he’s dying from brain cancer. While in the hospital, he sees a TV broadcast of an interview with Professor Albert Darlington, who believes the world’s no-birth crisis is due to an anomaly in the Astral Realm, where souls are being hijacked. He needs someone to volunteer to go into the “Stream and shut it down.” Leaving the hospital, Diane sees Michael’s obituary in a newspaper blowing in the wind. Michael insists he needs to find Professor Darlington. Michael, Diane, and son, Nick, travel to the professor’s house in Iowa because Michael is convinced that “something or someone” wants him to. Through meditation led by Professor Darlington, the professor, Michael, and Diane enter the Astral Plane where they see other astral bodies being sucked ibto the mysterious “Stream”. Diane almost gets trapped in the “Stream” but is saved in time by Michael and the professor. Michael must decide whether to enter the stream. The problem is Michael will have to die to enter the stream.

Act 3: Reeling from the change. Diane fights the idea of Michael dying to enter the stream. She wants out of the professor’s mansion now, but a storm prevents them from leaving. That night in bed at the professor’s mansion, Michael has a vision of Jimmy and is transported to Afghanistan where Jimmy was a soldier. Jimmy knows about the professor and the battle Michael will need to win. Out of the vision, Michael believes entering the stream is something he must do. Diane fights the program. She doesn’t even know the worst yet. Even if Michael dies and enters the stream, there’s no guarantee, he can come back.

Act 4: Consequences/Fallout/Major expression of conflict. Michael decides to accept the mission. He bids a heart-wrenching farewell to Diane and Nick. Michael and Diane meet the Astral Team then get a look at the pod that will house Michael’s earthly body while his Astral body enters the Stream. Michael puts on his Astral suit in preparation to enter the pod and have his heart stopped. Diane bids him farewell, “Come back to Nick and me.”

Act 5: Cliff Hanger/They are on the journey. The hibernation pod closes and the mission begins. The countdown starts from 10 down. Diane panics because she didn’t forgive Michael before he went into the pod. But it’s too late. Michael’s heart stops, and he enters the hereafter.

How does it end? (setup / payoff). The first season ends with Michael’s realization that the Stream is not the problem, but only a symptom of the real danger; the lifting of the sacred seals and the unleashing of an unimaginable evil.

Credibility questions What have you done?: I wrote, executive produced, and co-produced “Love Wine”, a romantic comedy released on NetFlix. Additional credits include “The Darkening”, a suspense/horror film (2012) that I wrote, executive produced, produced, directed, and distributed, which had a limited theatrical release by Rave Cinema. I have authored over forty original screenplays in all genres. I am currently managed by Hakim Mulraine of New York, NY and worked on a paid rewrite of a screenplay adaptation of the book, “The Island Calls”.

[Eric Humble]

Eric Humble’s Pitch Fest Pitch!

What I learned is: that I can pitch without resorting to any kind of “performance.” Just having enough key information about the project that is interesting committed to memory so that I can respond naturally to the likely questions that will be asked is enough to create a powerful pitch. The only real area that I see I need to work on is describing the acts – the draft I have below is too long and contains too much information, but this is something I can adjust as I go over the pitch to prepare for market.

1. Tell us your credibility.

Hi, my name’s Eric Humble and my scripts have placed in several contests.

2. Tell us your genre and title.

I have a one-hour thriller titled BLOOD APOTHECARY.

3. What is your one or two sentence hook?

A pharmaceutical chemist has to infiltrate a secret society dedicated to suppressing cures in order to shape human history in order to cure his wife’s cancer.

4. Please give your one or two sentence answer to each of these questions:

What is the budget range?

1 million per episode.

What actors do you like for the lead roles?

Jude – a Joseph Gordon-Levitt type

Dres – a Zoe Kravitz type

Marks – Billy Campbell

Give me the acts of the story.

Teaser: A hi-tech lab with the dead bodies of all the lab techs littering the floor. Jude wakes up, groggy, his head bleeding – to a man in a ceremonial mask holding a gun to Jude’s face. The masked man asks one question: “Where is the girl?”

Act One:

Jude is a gifted pharmaceutical chemist who has discovered the cure for cancer… but is bound by an NDA to keep it under wraps. But just as his wife announces she’s pregnant with their first child, she collapses. She has inoperable brain cancer… and his cure is her only hope.

Act Two:

Jude sneaks around the company’s elaborate security systems to access

a lab and pull a team together to manufacture his cure. But through the

window, he sees a masked sniper taking aim at a woman. He rushes to

save her, accidentally killing the sniper… and is then taken to a meeting of

masked people called The Conclave who discuss the various ways they

can suppress pharmaceutical breakthroughs happening at research

companies all over the world.

Act Three:

The woman Jude saved is a con artist named Dres – who manages to

escape a few other assassins sent by The Conclave. She and Jude

reunite to make a plan to cover their tracks… when Jude discovers a

shocking truth about her – she is 100 years old, a member of a race of

immortals who have been targeted for extermination by The Conclave

over the course of centuries.

Act Four:

Jude is summoned back to work by his superiors, unsure if any or all of

them are involved with The Conclave. But it’s a set up – and his friend

and ally is the masked man tasked with eliminating him and the entire lab

crew… as soon as Jude reveals where Dres is.

Act Five:

Jude is forced to fight his former friend. He destroys the lab and escapes

– and makes a pact with Dres that he will infiltrate the Conclave to help

her find who is at the top so she can kill him.

How does it end? (setup / payoff).

After years of refusing to push back against any sort of conflict, Jude has

to not only fight – but actually kills a man…

…only to discover that the only entry into The Conclave is to train as one of their

assassins.

Credibility questions What have you done?

For this script, I interviewed researchers at the National Institute of Health,

and nurses who worked on drug trials and dealt with Big Pharma companies

directly. As a writer, I’ve had screenplays that placed in several contests

including Screencraft and Bluecat.