{"id":116,"date":"2008-02-16T19:21:15","date_gmt":"2008-02-16T07:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/16\/datenight-prep\/"},"modified":"2012-09-26T18:32:39","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T06:32:39","slug":"datenight-prep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/datenight-prep\/","title":{"rendered":"DateNight Prep"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pitch is where you, a writer, a person used to working long hours all by yourself, a person usually socially awkward with bizarre idiosyncrasies, a person who chose writing for a living because you can’t express yourself in words, a person who is the furthest and farthest thing from any type of salesperson, must now sell your idea.
\n– Murderati<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Never have a meeting. Always have a conversation<\/span>.
\nTim Clague<\/strong> (emphasis added)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Less than a week to go until DateNight 1.1<\/a>, and the familiar tendrils of fear and self-loathing plait my intestines.<\/p>\n

I’ve searched my archives for articles and posts on pitching. Recommended reading: from the US, Kay Reindl<\/a> and Murderati<\/a>; from the UK, Danny Stack<\/a> and Tim Clague<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve drafted leave-behinds. Single-page distillations of the project*, not only do they succinctly describe the project (‘It’s a situational comedy about a jive-talking skateboard’), they’ll be a crutch for whatever I end up blathering (‘Did he just say it’d contain coarse lang- whoa!<\/em>‘), and will quite handily include my contact details.<\/p>\n

I’m practicing smiling. I’ve been told that I come across as rather serious and unsmiling. I’m looking to strike a balance between confidence and humility (‘Yeh, shucks – I so rock’) that won’t unnerve people.<\/p>\n

Which leaves the spiel. An interesting observation: instead of writing to be read<\/em>, I have to write to be heard<\/strong>. And as with dialogue writing, it’s not just content I have to worry about (the leave-behind is a big help there), I need to ensure that I provide sufficient motivation:<\/p>\n

\n

PRODUCER<\/p>\n

... A jive-talking skateboard.<\/p>\n

ME<\/p>\n

Called Samuel L Jackson.<\/p>\n

PRODUCER<\/p>\n

Called -.<\/p>\n

Producer can only blink rapidly, momentarily struck dumb.<\/p>\n

ME<\/p>\n

And his sidekick, a laid-back surfboard. Called John Travolta.<\/p>\n

The Producer leans forward:<\/p>\n

PRODUCER<\/p>\n

(leans forward)<\/p>\n

Tell me more.<\/u><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

* Despite my complaints about synopsising<\/a>, those hateful little documents have been quite helpful.<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pitch is where you, a writer, a person used to working long hours all by yourself, a person usually socially awkward with bizarre idiosyncrasies, a person who chose writing for a living because you can’t express yourself in words, a person who is the furthest and farthest thing from any type of salesperson, must … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “DateNight Prep”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[309,686,470,706,310],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","tag-danny-stack","tag-datenight","tag-kay-reindl","tag-murderati","tag-tim-clague"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3092,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/3092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}