Film Courage: We put a call out to our YouTube community and we asked for bad
pitches and we had a tremendous response. Here's just a few of our favorites there
were so many great ones to choose from. This one is from the username The Soylent Company.
It's not real that's a brand. Here's the pitch so there's a guy who can't open this
jar of pickles so he runs around Los Angeles trying to find ways to open the jar of pickles
he finds himself in weird situations as well as in more and more trouble in the
end he finds a girl that has been trying to open a jar of jelly they managed to
open the jars in the end and then they sit down and they watch Shrek together the end.
Jeffrey Davis, Writer/Professor: May I? Oh man please please I'll just tell you everything that
I've learned and I've been taught it's not a story it's not a story and a pitch has to give
you a sense of story storytelling is everything that's the biggest thing in this book I think and
and first of all it's silly it's an incident it's a little sketch of people I don't have
any details I don't know I guess it's funny in a kind of great school I mean I'm sorry
I apologize and then the the other thing is that it makes the mistake of a lot of writers
I've made it to is the is the the Greek the the bringing something in at the last moment you know
out of nowhere the girl appears and she's got a jar of jelly or whatever also I have to say
that I think most people would stop listening after a guy has a jar of pickles because you
haven't told me anything about the person you you haven't started with the character and what
his problem is he's got a jar of pickles he can't open I have that problem it's 15 16 times a day
not pickles other things everything anyway that's why I think that doesn't work Peter
may have some other thoughts about that or he can go on to the next one.
Peter Desberg, Writer/Professor/Psychologist: Okay, well let me just there's no conflict,
there's no conflict okay but there's a conflict in that he can't
get a result that he wants which is to open this jar but let's say a conflict is different
than a problem yeah it's not going to be something that's going to carry you
okay okay and and again if the conflict has no consequence and no import
foreign you got nothing okay here's another quote unquote bad pitch from
viewer Judah Harad and Judah writes an ex Vietnam veteran who is also an ex-Samurai who then became
a police officer who then gained super powers from a fly who then became a Samurai fly and can kill
people with one type of a finger the villain is a robber who gets put out within the first
15 minutes because of the one tap well I've got thoughts about it but you go ahead go ahead okay
I need you to reread it to me sure okay here we go so and X Fiat excuse me an X Vietnam Veteran
who is also an ex- Samurai who then became a police officer who then gained superpowers
from a fly who then became a samurai fly and can kill people with one top of a finger the
villain is a robber who gets put out within the first 15 minutes because of the one tap
okay let's take the first half first you just told me everything
it's too much I think he's a Vietnam veteran and then I'm getting all these things you're telling
me you're loading it up front and and I my head is spinning I think it's funny I think the funny part
of it is the being in you know infected by the fly and getting the getting the superpowers I also
don't think you should ever call someone a villain in a pitch because it takes their Humanity out
villains are usually one-dimensional in like you know they used to be they're not anymore I
just give you die hard as the perfect example he's more interesting than the Bruce Willis character
the the late great Alan Rickman so that's my thing it again it's you're rushing the story and you're
putting too much on the main character on the protagonist it's very hard to buy all of those
things so pick one a guy gets superpowered from a fly I want to know more about that I don't know
Peter you have something to add to that well I mean for openers we go back to the conflict
issue that and there's a bad guy and he kills him one shot why did he need killing why was he a bad
guy why do we care I'm telling too much how do we how do we worry about a guy who has all these
superpowers there's nothing in there to really like or admire or be concerned about so there's
no character that you care about you know what happens to him you don't care what happens to
your protagonist you have no story right and he's obviously Invincible with all of these Powers so
you have somebody that you might as well have hey if it's a guy that got a big steamroller
and there's a little guy that he's mad at so he runs him over yeah I mean and if he makes him a
Samurai steamroller you know the reason sorry go ahead no it's silly and but you've front loaded
him with too many characteristics right and if there's a good story about how he got all of these
things maybe that would draw you in but there's no hint that you're going to hear that story
and then you've got a bad guy who you don't care about but he dies anyway
one of the things that I've been really pleased about with the undergraduate it's
an LMU [Loyola Marymount University] and I hope that other film schools are doing more of this
is we have a class now finally for the last seven years for freshmen it is about storytelling it's
not primarily about storytelling for film or television it's about storytelling because all
storytelling is the same and it has the same rules same as business telling a story in business and
I think that you by the time they become seniors they know the basics and they they wouldn't make
that mistake I think these people are trying to write bad pictures which is they're probably
really good writers so I just want to get that in guys we see through you you mentioned Forrest Gump
in the book and when when it was pitch you said it took 10 years or so eight or ten yes it was really
the hero of that was the producer Wendy fireman who just would and there was a novel so it wasn't
start you know it had source material and they I know we my wife and I are very close friends with
someone who got a million dollars to to write a draft of it the guy that wrote On Golden Pond
was and has an Academy Award Ernest Thompson also wrote a draft I don't think a word of their drafts
were used but they did get a million dollars each so it was very very difficult to get that done I
tell you then you look back on it you say and everybody's copied that that structure you know
that goes backward and forward in time and uses the bench as to hold the structure in place so
it's an episodic movie so I'm sorry but what was your question well when it was pitched were there
holes that people found in it what was it was the story too hard well why should we care about this
guy well I'm wondering I mean I've read a little bit about it and I think I think it was just they
they were worried that it was too episodic and that he wasn't active enough that it was the
other characters but when you really look at the movie and I've studied the movie I loved the movie
it's he changes lives his own life also changes a little but it's the other people he affects and if
he were not there they wouldn't change I mean it is it's unusual it was a hard sell as we know but
I can think of 10 or 20 movies that had this that are simpler in structure and have the same problem
getting done you know nobody knows I mean it's the William Goldman thing that Peter loves that nobody
knows anything right so you know and this is again why I think TV is going to outshine movies is it
already is is they take more risks for example I don't know if you've seen it it's on Apple TV it's
over now they did Four Seasons it's it's about Emily Dickinson but the way they did it the pitch
was it's Emily Dickinson set at the time of Emily Dickinson but we're going to put them we're going
to have them speak in contemporary dialogues as if we're now and it's brilliant and and and and so
like you know the sisters they'll all be sitting around and they'll get some bad news and one of
them well that really sucks and you would think that wouldn't work but it's so well written and
I think that's where chances are being taken you know how many movies that have come out you can't
include Coda which won the Academy Award because that was financed by Apple TV so how many movies
have we got that are real risk takers now big movies I mean big big film companies and that goes
back to why is it so hard to pitch in Hollywood right that's the r word I we always tell us yeah
sorry go ahead I just think that in I we steer our kids toward careers in television and this year
the seniors who wanted to go and that was 80 percent they're all either about to get their
entry-level jobs or in entry-level jobs because that's where the work is television and its many
forms film is always going to be there but how many Maverick movies are there going to be you
know with Tom Cruise is going to say I'll do this that movie only gets made because Tom Cruise wants
to be in it cyan guard is the is the username forgive me if I'm mispronouncing it in this
movie we start with the last few seconds of the movie with a man and a woman standing atop rubble
looking out over the ocean Horizon next scene is 30 years earlier a similar scene followed by
50 years earlier we keep doing this for the next two hours traveling backwards thousands of years
without ever drawing any connections between scenes okay this one's on you enjoy yourself
now again this is an intentional of course yeah that's what makes them fun I guess we would have
to help it's all the same things we've said so far sure no story no conflict we have no character no
details get attached to there's there's no plot there's no you've got to give me in the hook
a sense of why they're standing on that rubble why are they there and why should I care I don't know
if you find this interesting okay Jeffrey gets to teach screenwriting so he's working with students
who want to learn screenwriting they're very sophisticated I get a lot of business folks that
I'm trying to teach these very basic concepts too so I I do a little exercise with them
where I start out saying well let me let me tell you something
woman sits down at a computer she writes something
out in a word processor a hits print and gets your document is that a story
and they kind of look at me quizzically and say sounds more like an incident to me than a story
so what would make it more story like well we don't have any conflict at all so how about if
she goes to the printer and gets an error message it doesn't do it so now we have a little more
something happening but why do we care who's she why do we care if she gets her document printed
well how about we'll give her a name well we'll call her Anna she
just graduated from college and this is her first job and she's the first
first person in her family to ever go to college this is her first day on the job
and she's the only Latino working there and she can't get her document printed
so all of a sudden now we start to feel a little bit for her because we're feeling like first
person in a family first person with the job so we sort of like her a little bit and she's in trouble
say now how can we beef this up a little bit well how about if we find out that John in
the IT department is really pissed that she got the job because he wanted his friend to
get it but they gave it to a Latina so she didn't get it because she was
good she got it because she was female and Latin so he mucked up the printer
so now we have a little more of a conflict we've got somebody we can dislike and so we keep adding
these elements and just a long story short we find out we we jack up the conflict a little the boss
needs the document he's going on a business trip at five o'clock he's leaving the office
it's just about five o'clock the printer ain't working and then she says I'll email it to him
story's over oh okay but but in each element we're saying the more
now if we wanted to make this a better story how could we care more about her
how can we make John a bigger jerk right so all the way along we're looking at what are
the elements that make a story that's very helpful I bet for business people because it's simple and
it's clear essences and what we're doing is we're making it additive we're at each step we're saying
just this little tweak notice how it changes oh we went from I don't care at all to I kind of care
right oh I know I care more yeah a poor girl that's son of a bun you know in most
just I'm so just one last thing sure but I find it's really it's really helpful to do
it socratically so in each case I don't say let's add this it's what would make it more exactly and
then we we play around with answers too but you're also by doing it socratically you are
you are aping the way it's done in the real world we don't just sit there and talk of people I'll
say the first just to give another example of the simpler and not as maybe not as powerful as
what Peter just did but the first thing I just taught about writing when was a kid is what's
the difference between the queen died the king died and the queen died the king died of grief
and right away you know you have the makings of a story when you say grief
I'm not I'm just saying that sometimes I mean the other thing that's really powerful about Peter's
example is it's simple it's straightforward and it's it gets specific and I think details
really matter in storytelling and I think a lot of people rush I've done it I know so I've made
the mistake you really want to tell that story so either you tell too much or you tell too little
did you want to give us another one this is fun I like how you like this which is a new game but
just the one thing is by by doing it socratically they're learning to ask those questions and and by
the way if they go into a writer's room or they go into our one person we interviewed David Alper who
that PepsiCo they taught and one of the things he was put in charge of was he tells that great
story about the Apple watch and the but is to Mentor younger people because they wanted to
create the next generation of leaders and they said in a room you don't get to listen you have
and this is the same in Hollywood those two things are identical if you sit silently in
a writer's room goodbye goodbye you're being paid a lot of money to be here to offer your.