My writing group has the advantage of being able to pull from alumni to speak at panels and give ideas. Last night I was able to pitch my half hour sitcom idea to a comedy exec from ABC and a writer from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia."
I've pitched before, a bit, but have been on few official, in-office pitches. I didn't do much planning, really just beefed up my character bios and went through it in that way. To be frank, I was kind of winging it.
And the first reaction I get from the ABC guy is, "Very well presented, I liked the structure of your pitch." The conversation then steered into notes on the idea itself, which were very helpful, especially since I'm approaching this as someone who thinks like a one hour writer, not a sitcom writer.
It's just funny that I got a note praising my preparedness when I was pretty sure I was under-prepared.
I think what it really comes down to is whether or not you can speak clearly about a subject in a room. If you're writing a script, you should know it well enough to not really need to read from a crib sheet in giving your presentation.
Hopefully this means I'll be good at pitching. It's a necessary skill that a lot of writers either don't have, or struggle to develop.
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