Film Courage: Scott, can you take us through a realistic scenario of
a screenwriter pitching an idea to an executive? Where does it begin?
Scott Kirkpatrick, Executive Vice President of Co-Productions & Distribution/Author:
Usually it takes a good amount of schmoozing to get the meeting in the first place. There
is a lot of sort of getting your foot in the door professionally when the meeting
actually is secured it usually starts at log lines usually an executive on the other side
of the room is looking for specific types of programs they'll want they'll be kind of overly
specific in terms of like they want mysteries about XYZ they want romances about ABC and
they'll sort of like walk you through a very clear-cut expectations of what they're looking
for in a project and they're usually looking for a list of log lines or very, very short synopses
like 100-200 words and that's usually done by email honestly when you do secure the meeting
and in today's world it's almost usually Zoom or some kind of a teleconference you just sort
of walk through those ideas a bit but it's really much more about sussing out who you are what you
bring to the table how many variations of the same thing you can sort of deliver upon in the hopes of
maybe not just doing a one-time deal but actually building more of a relationship and a partnership
so that you can sort of get repeat business with a client so you've already been vetted before
you're doing a zoom meeting okay it's not just a blind pitch where someone wants to do their sort
of HomeTown Story and they don't really know the person they've kind of gone through the
proper channels yeah I mean look it's to get that meeting the process to sort of reach that it's if
you find a company that's willing to to look at content from new people that's pretty critical
so that can be you can reach out to people via LinkedIn you can reach out to them online you
can you can do enough research and find their contact details or at least some general info
at XYZ company kind of email someplace and those will actually get reviewed and read
I'm not saying there's a real high turnover in that but it's a it's people do evaluate that and
if there is something there that sort of matches a general sort of feel of what the company looks
for if it sort of matches the brand and what that company delivers to the market
yeah you usually will have somebody reach out and it's not just one script they're looking
for people who sort of can deliver a high output somebody who's coming to the table not just with
like one screenplay and that's what they have they want somebody who has three screenplays or
five screenplays not that they'd read them all but they just sort of want to know that this
is a writer who's who can deliver who is kind of a writing machine so to speak and can just
keep getting new versions as I said sort of the same thing of the same kind of genre out there
what's the bare minimum experience someone has to have to pitch in Hollywood
you need to be able to show that you've sort of done the work in a sense the Catch-22 when
starting out for anybody starting out in a career is you have zero professional experience but the
people on the other side of a table want to see that you've done something they'll look you up on
IMDb they'll look you up your general sort of online presence to get a sense of who you are
and if you're trying to break into writing or something creative it's actually quite challenging
because if you don't have those credits in place sort of how do you prove that what's fun about
today which is very different than 20 years ago 30 years ago is that anybody can kind of create their
own website and can sort of present themselves very professionally through any number of social
media outlets so you can sort of create your own personalized brand via website or something else
and even if you have no professional credits you can sort of showcase some of the styles that you
work within some of the writing samples that you have and sort of present yourself that way I think
having that sort of presence is a great start and then I would say you sort of need a I call
it like a critical mass of of materials to be able to show and that would be like if you want to be
a screenwriter my personal advice is you need at least two scripts if not three that would
be the ideal and you need about five to ten like ready to go fleshed out log line ideas and a log
line being 75 words to 100 words concepts that do show that beginning middle end concept of a movie
and I think that with that you're sort of coming to the table with a good amount of volume and a
professional background that's enough sort of to secure that meeting and sort of get that process
going so if you're going to markets if you're going and just sort of cold emailing people so
to speak not everyone's going to immediately turn and respond right away but you might get 15 that
do and if they do they can quickly sort of dive in there and see that no this person sort of has
potential let's see what they can deliver on let's see what their log lines are like let's see what a
synopsis looks like maybe they'd be willing to write on spec and writing on spec in this case
would mean hey we're doing 20 movies a year and the network will only buy from us if there's a
script and we don't want to put out X number of dollars to get a script that may never get green
lit so what if we worked with a writer on spec we can get the screenplay for a lower amount up front
and then if the green light takes place the rider gets the remainder of the money and it's a great
opportunity for for new writers especially to sort of get their foot in the door really show a track
record with a distribution company or production company multiple there's they don't have to be
exclusive and really start kick starting their career okay and so what if they've they've done
their homework on the production company they know that they're going to be pitching a similar genre
they have five let's say scripts ready to go they have other ideas but the thing that's going to get
them is their IMDb only shows like short films but they've actually done rewrites but it's not
reflected in their IMDb because we hear that a lot in comments well this person hasn't done anything
but they actually have it just isn't reflected in their IMDb how do they how do they kind of handle
that work around that I mean on my side of the industry I work very much on the business side and
there's like a fraction of the titles I've actually worked on in a creative capacity
a development capacity a distribution capacity I don't have my name on those films and that's
how most of us are on our side and distribution and development we don't we don't get credits all
the time and so you showcase it in other ways basically it's much more about the deals I've
closed and sort of the contacts that I have our business is really built on relationships so I
think that if you're a newer writer or somebody who does have experience it's about cultivating
the relationships my real view it's like such an old saying but it's really this industry is built
on relationships it's about who that's not enough to just that's enough to sort of sometimes get a
door open but that's not necessarily going to land the deal or get your first opportunity going and
that's all on your own shoulders and that's actually it's a little bit scary in a sense
but in truth like you have the most control over that because you can come into the room with the
right kinds of scripts with the right sorts of ideas with the right personal presentation in the
sense of being a professional and wanting to work and willing to put in the work to get it done.