From logline to leave-behind, the mechanics of the contemporary Hollywood pitch meeting

The Minutes That Matter

LOS ANGELES — The pitch meeting — in which a writer or producer presents a project concept to a buyer in a meeting that may last 20-45 minutes and determines whether development funding follows — is a performance genre with conventions, expectations, and success criteria that experienced pitchers know and inexperienced ones often don’t. The gap between a good idea and a successful pitch is real and teachable.

Buyers across studios, networks, and streaming platforms report consistent criteria: they want to understand what the project is (the concept, clearly stated), who the story is about (a specific protagonist with a specific problem), and why now (the cultural moment, market context, or timing that makes this project relevant). They want to feel the writer’s passion for the material without the passion obscuring their ability to assess whether the idea is commercially viable. And they want, by the end of the meeting, to have a clear picture of what they are being asked to fund.

The Logline

The logline — a single sentence that captures concept, protagonist, and conflict — is the atomic unit of pitching. It is harder to write than it sounds, because the constraints that make a logline useful — brevity, specificity, clarity — are exactly the constraints that writers resist when they want to convey the complexity and nuance of their project. A good logline is not a summary of the script. It is an advertisement for the emotional experience the script provides.

Television pitches add elements specific to the series form: the world of the show, the central characters beyond the protagonist, the week-to-week engine that generates episodes, and the series arc. A feature pitch can succeed on concept; a series pitch must also demonstrate that the concept sustains. The IndieWire screenwriting coverage includes interviews with writers about pitch experiences across the development spectrum. The meeting is 30 minutes. The preparation behind it is months. Both are necessary.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com