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Lesson 9
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6 Replies
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R Whitney
What I learned: I learned how important brevity is when doing a phone pitch and how well received this format is.
1. Tell us which of the four strategies you are going to use to open your pitch:
- Lead with credibility. Hi, I’m Rick Whitney and I have multiple quarter final scripts with the PAGE Awards Contest.
- Lead with a great title. I have a dark comedy called “Apricot Cyanide”.
- Lead with a strong business hook. It’s a contained setting mainly set at a farm house.
- Lead with a High Concept. What would you do if you found out your parents were poisoning homeless people and burying them on the family farm?
2. Give us your script for phone call pitches, like I did above.
Hi, I’m Rick Whitney and I’d like to pitch a script I think your company might like. OKAY. It’s a dark comedy titled “Apricot Cyanide”. It deals with a woman that discovers her parents have been poisoning homeless people and burying them on the family farm.
3. Give us a one or two sentence answer to the questions a producer may ask:
- What’s the budget range? 1-5 million
- Who do you see in the main roles? Felica Day
- How many pages is the script? 96 pages
- Who else has seen this? You are the first.
- Why do you think this fits our company? I saw xxxx and it was such a good contained movie I felt my script would be up your ally.
- How does the movie end? Their plan to keep her patents out for jail works with a few bumps along the way.
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Isti Madarasz’s Phone Pitch
What I learned from this lesson is that I REALLY need to be prepared and to the point.
Hello, I am Isti Madarasz, writer-director, just newly signed with A3 Agency. I made several feature films and episodes of TV series in my home country, Hungary where I am recently based, but now I’m starting my international carrier and that’s why I called you.
I have a low budget science fiction script, called KONTRAKT about a lawyer who has special powers so he can overwrite the laws of nature.
The budget is somewhere between $5-7 million if we shoot this in Eastern-Europe, where the story is set.
The lead character is a man in his 30s, maybe a British actor like Robert Pattinson, Paul Mescal or even Dev Patel would work.
The script is my 3rd draft and it’s 103 pages long.
My agents saw the script and we’re sending it to everywhere now but the reason I call you is because my primary desire would be to do it with you.
I saw your film XXX from 2021 and I was impressed by what you achieved with that budget and the genre was similar to my script so I thought it would be a perfect match.
The end: Our hero, who can get literally anything done through contracts, has a weakness: he tries to polish himself better and better through private contracts because he doesn’t believe he can be loved as he is… since it rains a lot in this country, he even has a contract that prevents it from raining on him. It’s a pretty spectacular thing by the way… at the end of the story he not only overcomes all the obstacles and saves his daughter, but he finally comes to terms with himself so he starts to undo these private contracts… he realizes that he’s enough just the way he is. In the final scene, he steps out into the street, it’s raining – and as the rain drips down his face for the first time in years, he smiles.
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Jane Alcala/Phone Pitch
What I learned from this lesson is: that phone pitching is possible and a viable way to reach producers; plus how best to prep for phone pitches. Had no idea on how this could be done well. Another exercise that has helped me pare down to the emotional core of my script.
Write out your phone pitch along with answers to the questions.
1. Tell us which of the four strategies you are going to use to open your pitch:
- Lead with credibility: I’m a former LA probation officer and stand-up comedian.
- Lead with a great title: My title is “Comediennes,” a term women comics hate.
- Lead with a strong business hook: It’s low budget and set in Los Angeles.
- Lead with a High Concept: Inspired by my friendship with an ex-probationee, it’s the story of a comic so desperate for viral fame she challenges her former parole agent to a TV roast battle.
I will likely lead with my credibility or high concept; or a combo of the two: I’m a former LA probation officer and stand-up comedian. My script was instpired by my friendship with an ex-probationer comic who jokes about her criminal past. It’s the story of a comic so desperate for viral fame she challenges her former parole agent to a TV roast battle.
3. Give us a one or two sentence answer to the questions a producer may ask:
- What’s the budget range? 1 to 5 million
- Who do you see in the main roles? Awkwafina and Tig Notaro
- How many pages is the script? 100
- Who else has seen this? A producer at Acer Entertainment who has offered to produce script.
- Why do you think this fits our company? Your movie, “Blank” has a similar tone and style.
- How does the movie end? A festering feud erupts in a huge fight between the main characters putting the roast battle in jeopardy. However, the finale roast battle triggers an emotional outpouring between them, in which they can finally bury their beef and acknowledge their friendship.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Jane Alcala.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Jane Alcala.
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ROBERT R. SMITH PHONE PITCH.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS LESSON IS…?
Keep pitches short and to the point. Be transparent and precise in answering questions.
1. WRITE OUT YOUR PHOE PITCH ALONG WITH ANSERS TO THE QUESTIONS.
My pitch: Genre: Erotic Thriller. Title: Beach Girl of the Year.
A nude centerfold model sues her Beach House magazine editor boss for sexual harassment and wins.
2. Tell us which of the four strategies you are going to use to open your pitch.
Lead with high concept above.
3. GIVE US ONE OR TWO SENDCE ANSWER THE QUESTRIONS A PRODUCER MAY ASK:
1. What’s the budget range?
$15 to $30 million.
2. Who do you see in the main roles?
As the model: Margot Robbie.
As the editor: Leo di Caprio.
3. How many pages in the script?
114 pages.
4. Who else has seen this?
You are the first or a few other companies. And if asked, and there have been others, tell who they are.
5. Why do you think this fits our company?
Because you have done films before in this genre.
6. How does your movie end?
After years in here new-found role of spokesperson for Women’s Rights and Workplace Justrice, she finds peace and a new boyfriend.
The model is found dead in bed. Her death is unsolved (Is it suicide? Or murder by poisoning at the hands of her abusive Russian gangster boyfriend who himself is dead by gunshot fired by the model’s teenage daughter who claimed the boyfriend had stated he would kill both mother and daughter.
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John Chabot’s Phone Pitch
Write out your phone pitch along with
answers to the questions.1. Tell us which of the four strategies
you are going to use to open your pitch:I would lead with a great title JESTER
and a strong hook “Imagine you’re an aspiring court jester and
you’re injected with a wizard’s sperm and told to go impregnate an
enemy princess.”2. Give us your script for phone call
pitches, like I did above.“Hello. My name is John Chabot. Do
you have a minute to hear a pitch for a comedy I wrote called Jester?
The script received a Recommend on coverage.Yes. Great! Thank you.
Imagine you’re an aspiring court
jester and you’re injected with a wizard’s sperm and told to go
impregnate an enemy princess.” And all this because the enemy
princess saw your stand up comedy act and innocently commented,
“Every woman wants a man who can make her laugh.”3. Give us a one or two sentence answer
to the questions a producer may ask:-
What’s the budget range? Mid
budget $15 to $30 million -
Who do you see in the main roles?
Adam Sandler or Greg Gutfeld or Steven Crowder -
How many pages is the script?
Jester is 103 pages. -
Who else has seen this? No one,
as yet. I came to you first. -
Why do you think this fits our
company? Because you made _______________, which is similar. -
How does the movie end? The
comedian defeats the enemy princess, her rock star boyfriend, and
two wizards. He rescues his own princess and they fall in love. They
marry. He becomes king and the queen buys him his own comedy club as
a wedding gift, which replaces the crude stage where he previously
performed that the wizards destroyed.
4. Answer the question “What I
learned from this lesson is…?” and place that at the top of
your work. -
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Christi’s Phone Pitch
What I learned from this assignment is you can have the pitch ready but if you’re locked out of the platform, good luck getting ahead.
1. I will lead with the stong business hook that I’ve got a Public Domain Agatha Christie that’s a PG13 Action adventure and ready to go!
2. My Phone Pitch: I have an Action adventure titled the Man in the Brown Suit. It’s an updated public domain Agatha Christie that follows a newly orphaned girl on the hunt for belonging and a fortune in diamonds.
3.
budget- As it’s an Agatha Christie, 50 Million and up.
Main roles- it would be great to have no names as Agatha Christie is a big enough name but for the transgendered individual, I’ve always imagined Matthew Lilliard.
The script is currently 90 pages long.
Nobody but my writing group has seen the script.
fits the company- it fits the genre and cost of your previous productions XXXXX.
How does it end. It begins with death, the death of Carton that starts her adventure and ends with death- her running an archaeological site. Harry appears and offers her a new beginning, essentially the death of her old self.
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