Jeffrey Davis, Writer/Professor: Never heard them talk about plot,
ever. They talked about characters and conflict.
Film Courage: Can you explain the three elements of a Hollywood pitch?
Jeffrey: Well I'll start. The the first thing is a hook because you have to have a premise.
We've talked about this many times in the book [Pitch Like Hollywood: What
You Can Learn from the High-Stakes Film Industry]. The first way though in my experience and
what we talk about in the book is you have to start with a sentence that hooks people
and Peter will you tell them one that comes from Karol Hoeffner’s pitch
about the girl who leaves school for a year. I love that, I think it's an excellent example.
Peter Desberg, Writer/Professor/Psychologist:
I’m I can do it. I'm not sure I'll get the wording exactly right.
Jeffrey: It doesn't matter.
Peter: Sometimes you learn more if you don't go to school.
Jeffrey: Right, so it's called Leap Year or Gap Year, I’m sorry! It's called, Gap Year. Leap
Year's is a whole Amy Adams movie. So you start with that because that may be as far as you'll get
if they don't like…so it's one or two sentences at most it gives you a sense of
what the theme or the story might be about and then if you're lucky you go to the log line
which I'm sure a lot of people have talked to you about.
Peter: But a quick interjection. As a boring psychologist (which I guess is redundant)
one of the things we look at a lot is the principle of primacy,
the thing you hear first is the thing you remember best. There's hundreds and thousands of studies.
I give somebody a list of items to buy at the market they always remember the
first one. it's just what we do right and so the first thing you hear is very important
and so if you can get that very first thing to be something that rattles around in their cortex
and stays with them because it's clever and it gives you some sense of where you're going that's
going to help guide them all the way through I'll give you another example because we use it all the
way through the book and that's the odd couple probably the best American comedy written in
the latter half of the 20th century and I would say and we know this because everybody copies it
hopefully they make it their own when they copy it like I was thinking about
mom which was a great show but it's the odd couple so Peter came up with a great because Neil Simon
didn't have to write hooks and log lines because he was famous and successful by the time he wrote
the odd couple but the the hook that Peter came up with saving your best friend's life could kill you
that's a great hook because it makes you want to hear more and that's the whole purpose and
it goes with that principle of privacy I'm going to remember that that's going to stay in my head
and and it's an anomaly which which makes it a little more powerful and it's a little poetic
too which is nice so now tell them the premise of the odd couple which is that I mean I'm sorry the
log line the the next step please this is oh I don't know if I ever told you this you can cut
this you know my dad produced the odd couple so I have a personal attachment to the tv show
which I always thought was the best of all of the versions where were we oh longline
getting old as hell you've got that so so it's the the the neatest guy in the world
moves in with the sloppiest guy in the world they have all the same problems they did
with their wives and what what am I missing from that there is something missing no no
I think that's that's just just say a divorced company to I'm sorry I didn't say divorce the the
divorce men the sloppiest guy in the world and the neatest guy in the world move in together
and have all the same problems they had with their wives that's the that's the log line I
hope you can cut around this would you say Laverne and Shirley was enough yes absolutely complete and
because Gary Marshall who was penny's brother had produced the odd couple so I'm sure that I mean
the thing is it's been you know when I say it's used I mean I think the really best ones certainly
two and a half men is you know which is not a show I've ever loved but but that's certainly
the odd couple you know it's two brothers and they couldn't be more desperate so you know we told you
this in a previous interview but we have a flair for repetition in other words we forget things
that when Jeffrey and I were writing our book interviewing comedy writers
we were saying do you think these writers are going to go more because they're creating stuff
on the spot we said are they going to go more for character or they're going to go for story first
and we found out that the answer was neither they went for conflict all comedy all any any kind of
entertainment no conflict no story and so the nice thing about the log line is right away you're hit
with here's the major conflict and you can see put two people like this together and they're going to
approach every situation from diametrically opposite points of view so the conflict is
constantly inevitable right and and that you can see it as you're listening you can already see
all the ways you're going to have confidence in any like any good story it grows you know
you know it's going you think it's going one place like the Andy story but you can't see the end and
that's what you want you really don't want people to know where it's going the minute they know
where it's going in my experience and I'm sure Peter has a similar experience and we've had it
together is the minute they know it's going it's an I think it's an automatic no yeah we heard that
details are really important right and I know this is a cliche example and we've we've been
told you know this is overused but sunset boulevard is one of your favorite movies it is my
favorite okay okay right basically yeah and that that if you were to pitch it you said you would
use you would pitch it based on the characters always come from the characters and conflict
that's what we learned so you know when I think sometimes in film schools I think it's changing
structure structure structure is taught first and maybe it's because of how I grew up and who I grew
up around I never heard them talk about plot ever they talked about characters and conflict
a couple of the people who we interviewed in that book are no longer with us they were like like
Sherwood Schwartz you know but you brought up the Brady Bunch I don't think he or Leonard
Stern talked about they talked about conflict and they talked about what would the character do
and what do they want and in every scene I think this doesn't get talked about enough is what do
they want not just in the whole arc of a story what do they want in each scene and I think
and what's in their way and that's conflict and and when in the case of Norma Desmond what what
is she doesn't I mean to boil it down she wants to make a comeback and I think what's underneath
that and what makes it you know and people don't realize that it's a satire and that's why they
got so angry in Hollywood when it came out you know Louis B. Mayer Jack Warner threatened they
said you've you're trading and they said to Billy Wilder you're training on the industry that has
fed you and created you they didn't realize it was a satire you know because it's all so tragic but
yeah I mean she wants she doesn't she doesn't want to be passed she she's writing that script which
William Holden describes as dreck you know and she thinks that's going to be her comeback and I'm
happy to say I've never seen the musical because I didn't want to spoil the experience of the film.