Jeffrey Davis, Writer/Professor: The minute you act like you're
doing somebody a favor I personally think you're dead in the water.
Film Courage: How is pitching in Hollywood different from pitching in Silicon Valley?
Peter Desberg, Writer/Professor/Psychologist: That's a really good question
and my view is I wouldn't structure it as how are they different I’d see them as
two points on a continuum because there's a lot of overlap in any good kind of pitch but
clearly you're talking about one very specific type of product in Hollywood versus an infinite
set of things that you can pitch. The basic ideas are always going to be the same right that
there are a number of factors, again I keep wanting to move us into persuasion
because I love talking about persuasion, the psychology of persuasion is an incredible area
and we know a lot now about how people make decisions that we didn't know a while ago.
One of the interesting things for example have you
heard of a book called Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman?
Film Courage: I haven't read it but I've seen it.
Peter: Please for your sake read it, it's the best book I've read in decades. The man is so smart it
will scare you but one of the major theses of the book is that when we solve problems there
are two ways we can go. We can think about it very very deeply or we can use our intuition.
A good part of the research that he's done says if you ask people how they process they say deeply,
if you watch the solutions they come up with they're almost always intuitive.
Intuition sounds like a flighty kind of idea but intuition is based on everything you know,
everything you believe, all of your history, so it's a vast storehouse of information. You're
not always starting from scratch the interesting thing about this is if you're pitching anything
screenplay a new detergent doesn't matter you start out with the idea that you'd like to keep
people processing the information you're telling them at the intuitive level because if it's in the
intuitive level then everything is fine everything goes and fits with your background and everything
you believe the minute you make somebody go into deep hard thought one you don't like it
because it's hard to do you know anybody who enjoys doing math problems when they don't have to
you know immediately sour mood and it immediately makes you skeptical
because it doesn't fit your background it doesn't fit who you are and the way you think about things
so if you're forced to go out of that comfort zone and work really hard you you become much
more difficult to persuade so one of the things that we talk about if you're pitching
Hollywood or anywhere else got to do a tremendous amount of research before you go in on the people
that you're pitching to and again you want to know what are the things they've done
particularly what are the things they've done that they're proud of and feel good about
and we had a story in there a friend of ours Larry Brezner produced a movie called The Burbs
he hated the movie because the studio made him change the ending and if you went in and
pitched a project to him saying I love your work particularly I love the verbs you're out of the
office so you need to to be thinking about what's somebody's sweet spot how can I start out going in
that area do your homework I don't think enough people do their homework in any area because
they think what they've got is so original and so amazing they don't study what's come before
and what people like and don't like so I think the Larry story is a great example and we've got
other ones like that from business people there's one great story of
I believe it was your friend the vice president at Boeing and this guy walked
in I may have this wrong because it's a long book it's a great book it's very engaging
but I'm just saying I'm just having a conversation about it I'm not pushing it but I believe
it was Lexus or it was Toyota which is Lexus Jim Press right and this kid came in the room
in Bermuda shorts and flip-flops and I hope I'm not conflating two stories but it doesn't matter
Hawaiian shirt and a Hawaiian shirt and he had a briefcase on his lap and he kept telling them
all the things he was going to do to save them money and he doesn't realize that they're spending
billions of dollars trying to get better fuel efficiency he never takes anything out of the
briefcase he acts like he's doing them a favor of course they didn't do business with him
the minute you act like you're doing somebody a favor I personally think you're dead in the water
you know to amplify that point and Jeffrey was talking about it before
whenever you pitch you're pitching two things your project yourself and
what you're hoping for is that they're saying I may not go for this idea but I could see myself
in business with this person right so I would call on them you know I got the rights to this novel
need somebody to write it I'm going to give this guy a shot that's a nice thing if you're
doing a good job so again somebody gives you notes you start quarreling with them
oh you never want to see that person again right so you're always thinking of how can you be genial
how can you be nice how can you how can you avoid looking arrogant and we looking arrogant
I’m not doing my job you know it's interesting because that you bring this up you might want to
cut this out but it's interesting because I think the business is changing but all businesses are
changing and that is they don't want to do business with arrogant entitled people J.J.
Abrams came to the university a year or two ago J.J. and you know he's show business his dad was a
his second generation his dad was a big tv movie producer in the 90’s
and he said to the students you come out of school and come to work for me major producer J.J. right
and the day you show arrogance or entitlement like where's my corner office with the view and my
parking space you're fired we're not putting up with that anymore and I think the greatest
example of that is I won't mention his name but he's done I mean he's very wealthy but there was
no sexual allegations or anything like that he just treated people so badly through chairs at
them he's done I think that signals a really good change in industry and there's just too much work
and too many and just why can't you be nice I mean that's the thing is you don't have to be a jerk
we had a a fellow we were talking to you know when somebody comes in and says I'm a
graduate of the Yale drama school I was top of my class I got you immediately hate that person right
so this guy had gone to the UCLA I mean the USC film school yeah and you know it's always rated
the number one film school in the country and instead of saying I'm a USC film school graduate
he said you know what they taught me in the USC film school program whenever you leave the set
it should be exactly the way you found it right and so he used self-effacing humor to make fun of
this is all I learned but I did sneak in the fact that I went to USC but I didn't do it like this
right and then the the other point is you are when you do what Peter so confusingly dramatized
with that thing you're you're not you're not very smart because if they invite you
in they know where you went to school they're not taking you're not nobody comes off the
street you know this better than we do you've interviewed tons and tons and tons of people
nobody takes an interview with someone that they don't know something about that would be crazy
and it's never been that way but one one final note on this and then maybe we'll move on to
another question but have we gotten though a little too soft in terms of well this person said
this and I just feel that it's inappropriate and now oh yes we have we almost can't say anything
yes I think we're going through that phase I've I see it at or I see it and I hope that the pendulum
will swing back to normal because it gets a little crazy for example since we're talking
about show business today as well as business if you're going to write it's one thing at a school
or a university if you're in a writer's room and people are not talking about disliking a certain
group of people you know personally that's one thing but if in the script it pushes your buttons
and you can't or as the nude phrases it triggers you I really have to learn to
do this better yeah I like it when you do that because that is the new phrase it triggers you
and you can't deal with it and you say I'm sorry to the producer I have to leave the room
because the material is triggering me I wish you luck in your career in any career in Silicon
Valley we're not sitting around saying oh you know I don't like this or that group of people we're
talking about it within the work and I think that's where it might be getting too sensitive
that you've got to learn to deal with all subjects whether you're and I think that's what you're
asking right I mean it's one if you're if you're being insulting and nasty to people and it has
nothing to do with what you're working on that's a whole other story but I do think that we're going
through an over correction that's just my opinion but you seem to feel that way and you well I mean
I'm Generation X but I do see that it feels like maybe there's too much coddling going on I don't
have children so I can't really speak from the viewpoint of a parent but it does seem like maybe
we're getting a little bit too precious and I think that I mean again I'm not a psychologist but
I have a very close you work with one I work with one another once again I have a daughter who has
her MSW [Master’s in Social Work] now since I’ve seen you so so and she's in that phase fairly new
MSW who so she is analyzing oh everything that we say you know what you really mean is you know but
Peter told me not to worry that he did that that it's a part of the it's a writer passage yeah
okay right right it's an annoying rite of passage I’ll tell you that for other people but no I do I
agree with you I think that but I do think that it the pendulum is going to have to swing back
because it's crazy now it's just nuts well it's actually going down political lines which is.