A scriptwriter cannot possibly make his script sell, with just creativity and excellent writing skills in his kitty ñ he must be able to pitch his script in front of the parties concerned. Pitching a script can be stressful for the writer, but it is absolutely essential to be perfect in the art, so as to convince potential investors to consider it seriously.

Pitching is basically an animated summarization of the script, with special emphasis on the main characters and the events that matter with a special mention of the genre the script is based on. Pitching can be done personally or by other avenues like websites that facilitate online submission of a pitch, and also through community meetings like pitch festivals and pitch boot camp. However, when we do have a personal pitching to be done, it becomes advantageous, as we can directly communicate with our listener, who in this case, could be the director, producer, the studio executive or even an agent.

There are two forms in which pitching comes in; the short teaser pitch, and the long story pitch. The teaser pitch, being short, must be completed in about three sentences and must cover points like genre, premise and the target market of the film. Since it is extremely short, a good performance would create a great impact on the listener. However, one needs to prepare teaser pitches according to the listener. While the producer would be more interested in the casting procedure, marketing strategy, the cost of the film; the director of the story executive would like to know about the genre and the content. The general pattern goes like this: the first line would describe the main characters of the script, while the next sentence should shed light on the content and the genre, while the last line should have your listener wanting to know more about the script.

The story pitch is quite longer than the teaser, and generally goes around for about ten minutes. While the longer pitch gives you time to describe your product nicely, it also increases the chances of errors. One must concentrate on staying on the topic and narrate the story in an interesting manner. The pitch should start with the logline, a sentence that would describe the main essence of the script. This would be followed by the introduction of the main characters and how the things turn out to be as the story progresses, with emphasis on suspense, twists and turns. The climax needs to be narrated properly and should not have anyone falling short of their expectations.

However, besides the script and the pitch, what’s paramount is the personality of the writer. The pitching has to be done with a lot of enthusiasm, and a bit of wit would help build a rapport with the listener.

So, if you have a golden script, and you can pitch it well, you can be rest assured that, potential investors would certainly buy your script for further consideration.