Thank you! And I absolutely agree!! Extremely important to always be thinking about why we do things the way we do, how they could improve, and what it’s like to work with/for us!
Thank you so much for answering! I have several follow-ups: do you watch similar genre movies/ TV shows for research, and if yes, how many? How much time do you give yourself to come up with a take? Does the time investment differ with whether the IP is set up with producers vs studio, bake off vs exclusive submission? Finally, if you are coming up with a joint pitch with a director, how much input do they have on the story points/tone? Thanks so much again!
- I personally really like watching things that are in a similar genre / world as it's a good way to see what works (and more importantly what doesn't work)! And I'll generally do that until I'm bored and feel like I totally understand the rules of the road (4ish)
- I don't put a hard limit on the work that goes into a take, but if I were to guess I'd say it's 5-6 hours of work to minimum to figure out any pitch at all, and then 2-3 hours additional for every revision along the way. If I'm exclusively pitching I may take more time because it's something I care more about, but I think these estimates are kind of the bare minimum amount of work required to have something decent (for me).
- Once you have a director they're the boss of everything. So they'll at least have an opinion about tone/story but I feel like the best pitches I've done with directors are ones where they very much empower the writer to tell the story however they want and then just have feedback and ideas rather than dictating "here's how it's all gonna go."
Great read! And someone who’s worked at movie studios, I think development execs would benefit from reading this too!
Thank you! And I absolutely agree!! Extremely important to always be thinking about why we do things the way we do, how they could improve, and what it’s like to work with/for us!
Thank you so much for answering! I have several follow-ups: do you watch similar genre movies/ TV shows for research, and if yes, how many? How much time do you give yourself to come up with a take? Does the time investment differ with whether the IP is set up with producers vs studio, bake off vs exclusive submission? Finally, if you are coming up with a joint pitch with a director, how much input do they have on the story points/tone? Thanks so much again!
Quick answers for complicated questions:
- I personally really like watching things that are in a similar genre / world as it's a good way to see what works (and more importantly what doesn't work)! And I'll generally do that until I'm bored and feel like I totally understand the rules of the road (4ish)
- I don't put a hard limit on the work that goes into a take, but if I were to guess I'd say it's 5-6 hours of work to minimum to figure out any pitch at all, and then 2-3 hours additional for every revision along the way. If I'm exclusively pitching I may take more time because it's something I care more about, but I think these estimates are kind of the bare minimum amount of work required to have something decent (for me).
- Once you have a director they're the boss of everything. So they'll at least have an opinion about tone/story but I feel like the best pitches I've done with directors are ones where they very much empower the writer to tell the story however they want and then just have feedback and ideas rather than dictating "here's how it's all gonna go."