What to Bring to the Pitch Meeting

by Robin Rowe 3/17/2006

When pitching your screenplay or pilot, what should you have in the room with you? Do you bring the treatment, script, scene cards, research?

It depends on who you are, what the project is, and who's in the room. It's a meeting. How you should behave at a first meeting with someone new or at a meeting with someone you've known for years is quite different.

In general, you want props in the room that the people you're meeting will be excited to see. Anything you bring that doesn't help you will hurt you because it will be distracting. What you bring depends on what you're pitching. For instance, for a superheros story you could bring action figures. Whatever it is, bring things that are visual. Unless it contains an amazing revelation (with photos), there's no reason anyone should want to see your research at this stage, maybe ever.

Scene cards can be a great help to bring because they can keep you on track telling your story. Always bring scene cards. You don't have to take them out if you don't need them. You can keep them in your pocket as insurance, just for confidence.

Except as a writing sample to help you become a staff writer, you're not supposed to admit you have a pilot script. Those are sold off the pitch, and it's very difficult without being a proven showrunner. The reason a pilot script can't really convince anyone you're a series showrunner is one script doesn't prove you can write a script that's just as good for the next episode in only one week and do so week after week. Feature scripts don't have that problem. Nobody need worry if you can write the sequel.

The protocol with feature scripts is to ask at the end of the meeting if they'd like your agent to send it over. If you offer to hand it over yourself during the meeting that's getting pretty familiar unless you're pitching to friends. But again, it depends. If you're pitching to an actor you want to attach or to a friend of a producer maybe you do want to hand it to them yourself on the spot.

If you don't have an agent then any prodco or studio should insist you sign a waiver first before the meeting. You don't need an agent to pitch animation, but it helps. Other genres almost require an agent. If you can't get an agent it's unlikely you can get a prodco either. Having an agent says a professional thinks 10% of you is worth more than zero dollars.

A treatment is one to two pages, no more. Describe what's unique about each of the characters and give a story synopsis including the ending. Whether to provide a treatment depends. Try to find out if they like leave-behinds. Avoid going over one page. Keep it light.

Your pitch is your actual presentation, that is, yourself. What sells an idea is the pitch, or even just the title. For instance, the title "It Came From Earth", a parody of the "It Came from Mars" movies of the fifties, was enough to sell a feature at DreamWorks Animation recently. That idea was pitched at the end during what-else-have-you-got after the creator struck out with the idea that they had prepared. You don't have to bring anything but a great idea.