I'm going to republish a series of old posts about pitching an animated series. Although they still exist in the archives of this blog, fewer people find them than I'd like. As a result, I'm answering a lot of the same questions. Now, sometimes I write with the voice of authority but really it's just the echo of experience. My experience. So take it all with a grain of salt and I hope you find something useful to apply to your own work whether in animation or not.
Funny how the expertise gained in one creative field doesn't necessarily transfer to another, even if it seems related. If you've learned anything from my posts about my Emmaryn comic, please take away this lesson: DON'T PITCH ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR! Where was my brain when I included a second issue of nearly indecipherable thumbnails complete with misspellings in my pitch? I think it was excited about comic's potential and assumed the pitch could be informal, like physicists trading theories on bar napkins.
Well, I'm here to say it's not rocket science. It's common sense. Your pitch is the impression the editor/publisher/development executive judges you on -- even if they know you already. How much do you include? Enough to sell your project and no more. And that, my friend, is the trick.
You wouldn't think it from my comic presentation but I've been complimented on my animation pitches. In fact, I heard the same thing from several different studios. The complaint they share is that too many writers don't pitch shows; they pitch gags, a situation or a huge set up with no show attached. So how do you communicate to someone what a wonderful series you have in your head.
First, let me address the element of fear. Many writers, especially newer ones, are afraid of giving away their "good stuff." Here's a thought: how will a studio or network know your ideas are good enough to buy if you don't share them?
I've never heard a case of an animation development exec stealing an idea from a pitch. If an idea gets them excited they will want to make a deal with the guy who came up with the idea in the hopes he'll have more.
But if you're worried about the bad apples out there, register your pitch with the WGA online for around twenty bucks. Or you can send it to theCopyright Office at the Library of Congress for about thirty five dollars online. (If you get any interest on your project, immediately do both to establish that it's your copyright that they have to pay for.)
A variation on this fear is from the veteran writer who doesn't want to give his writing away for free. This makes sense in that development deals now want "mini-bibles" for the show. These are documents that have everything important that would be in a full bible but costs less. Your pitch is going to contain plenty of what would be in that bible. All I can say is that, in the current state of the industry, it's better not to be coy. The execs don't need and don't want every single detail, supporting character and potential storyline, but they want the basics. If they're interested enough to ask questions (that's a good sign) they don't want to be told, "You'll have to pay for that."
"Terry is a nice kid with a good sense of humor. He does well in school and has lots of friends. In fact Terry is absolutely normal in every way except that his nose is three and a half feet long. Literally. His nose comes around a corner a full second before his face. When he sneezes one of two things will happen: he'll be launched 30 feet into the air or someone in front of him is going to get a snot shower. Entire flocks of birds perch on it, small children are afraid of it and satellites have identified it from space. Despite all this, Terry remains a well adjusted kid."
That's not a show. It's not a story. At best, it's the start of a character. Considering Cyrano de Bergerac and it's modern variation, Roxanne, you might be deceived that it's a story but it's not. When you finish your pitch of a series the listener should have an idea of what kind of situations the character will deal with and the kind of stories that will be told. The above doesn't give you that. Although you could turn Cyrano or Roxanne into a series based on the characters, nose gags would get old fast. You don't base a show on a gag, visual or otherwise.
"What if Batman was a duck?"
It took a lot more than that to sell Darkwing Duck. In fact, he started out as a secret agent. But despite that, this simple sentence is more of a pitch than the nose boy paragraph. We know Batman and his mythos. We know the kind of adventures he has and the kind of adversaries he faces. Making him a duck suggests that the series is a comedy. However, other than suggesting it's a superhero spoof of some kind it doesn't tell be about his character, the tone of the comedy or how much adventure it may have.
"Imagine a city under the sea. People drive submarines instead of cars. Instead of walking their dogs, they swim their dolphins. In fact every mundane thing we do on the surface has an aquatic twist to it in Oceanville. It's the most incredible place that you could ever imagine and we get to experience through the eyes of the Land family whose patriarch has just been transferred there."
This pitch suggests a setting although I'd want to hear some more examples of mundane things with an aquatic twist before I buy it as the most incredible place to live. The line about dogs and dolphins suggests that it could be like The Jetsons or The Flintstones but with water being the gimmick instead of time period. On the other hand, it could be as dramatic as Steven Speilberg's Seaquest. You can't tell what the stories would be.
That's enough of what not to do. Your pitch needs to communicate what a typical episode would be like and why it would be entertaining. Describe the situation that will generate stories and the personalities of the main characters. Pretty simple but it's how you build those descriptions makes all the difference. More on that tomorrow. -- Tad
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