The art of the pitch LA Style includes a trip to St. John...
A little about my trip and then some about my pitches for this week...
Getting to the island of St. John was longer than going overseas! Our 24 hour journey to the island included sitting on a cramped Spirit Airlines flight for 9 hours (possibly the worst airline) and ended with the St. Thomas ferry dropping us off in St. John. Boy what a ride! And what an amazing island. (The local islanders are not the nicest people - or educated.) We jetted up the hill in our jeep that we rented (everyone on the island drives jeeps) up to our villa "Solaris." What a fine villa. We visited a different beach every day and each one was a pristine beach, with fine white sand and beautiful snorkeling! ...more later.
As for the pitches. We had two set up for my Christopher Titus project this week. One over at Fox with Mike Darnell and the other at CBS with Ghen Maynard. Well, in this town nothing is ever on time or on schedule. For the second time in a row Darnell rescheduled...the CBS also was rescheduled due to Titus. I also had another pitch set up over at A. Smith & Co. which my manager rescheduled due to the Darnell meeting being switched to next week.
I've been working on my own projects since December and am very very close to a huge sale with the Titus project. I've got three other ones that two production companies are interested in, and one that I am still coming up with the one sheet for.
What I love to do is come up with six shows, all just loglines with a premise in my mind. Then I go into the pitches with my loglines. I have found that Development people love this method. They can't stand to sit there and listen to one show for a whole hour that they really have no interest in. You can usually tell within a minute whether they are really interested or not. At the end of my pitches I reassess the ones that didn't have interest and the ones that did. Then when I go to the next pitch I only discuss the ones that are "trendy."
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6 comments:
Hey There,
You do sound like someone I need to know! You were able to buy 2 RT tix to St. John from just pitching shows? How'd you do that??
Sounds like you've hit the jackpot. Did ya work on big shows before this? Which ones? I'm trying to climb the TV ladder and need a little advice.
Hi Josh,
I was able to get the round trip tickets using some of my tax return money! I've been pitching shows since 2004 and have had lots of practice. I really think its part popularity (who you know), part numbers (how many people you pitch) and part having great ideas that are hot and well thought out. I'm creating Reality TV and have learned my field well. What do you want to do in television? And where did you go to school?
Hey
So you've been pitching for 4 years - that's a lot of practice. Have you been successful ?
I was an AP at a local TV station back east - would like to produce in LA. Would love to work on Idol or something like that - sounds like you've worked on some major series, which ones ?
Any chance of picking your brains about job hunting etc?
Big Thanks
Most certainly you can pick my brain! You can see my resume up on http://www.imdb.com or http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1508611/
We can set up a time to chat over email etc. Send me an email and we'll chat soon!
hey
i checked out your resume online, are they all your shows? I have to be honest not heard of them, did they do well?
How would i go about getting on a big show ? would love your feedback.
ok gotta run
Everyone starts somewhere. Its the bottom of the ladder baby - that is if you are starting fresh in LA! Production Assistant or Assistant, unless you have a specialty and you trained to do a specific thing like lighting, sound etc. Or your father, mother or brother knows someone and they can refer you to the Line Producer. You want to contact production companies, or look online at Realitystaff.com for positions.
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