Why Pitching Is Best
When a screenwriter has an original story for a movie, he faces a pivotal choice.
“Do I pitch it or do I spec it?”
Conventional wisdom states that some stories are fine to pitch, but others really need to be specked (apologies for the spelling). I’m here to challenge that conventional wisdom.
I think pitching is almost always the way to go.
Admittedly, I’m a bit biased here. I like pitching. I think I’m good at it, and I’ve had success doing it. Every original screenplay I’ve ever written was first sold as a pitch. In fact, in ten years of professional screenwriting, I have written a sum total of zero spec screenplays.
However, you don’t have to be naturally good at pitching in order to be successful at it and derive the benefits of it. Ted often talks about how he and Terry bring an actual corkboard and index cards to a pitch in order to divert attention to their structure, theme, scenes, characters and ideas…and away from their admittedly so-so public speaking and performance abilities. Me? I’m a salesman. I pitch my movies like 8 minute trailers. Other people are Garrison Keillor types, seeking to engross the buyer in an elegant tale well told.
All of us, however, get the same major benefit from pitching. We take the focus away from the page, and we put it on us.
How so?
Studios purchase specs routinely, often for staggering sums, but as is always the case, the vast majority are purchased as opportunities. Whether we like or respect it, the life of a spec screenplay is almost never “purchase, then shoot”. A good spec typically excites a studio because it has the potential to be a good filmed story, but more work is almost always required.
Unfortunately, they haven’t invested themselves in a human. They’ve invested themselves in a document. When you write a spec screenplay and submit it to the studios, your personality, work ethic, ability to work with others and infectious enthusiasm are fairly irrelevant. The screenplay is everything.
I pitch my original stories because I’m selling more than words…I’m selling a total service. I want to be the man they can trust to shepherd the story of the movie from the first draft to the locking of the last reel. I want to be the writer they recognize as a partner, with all of the rights and obligations that go along with that word. I want to be someone who offers them a chance in a “what if?” and all of the excitement and possibility that goes along with that, rather than someone who gives them a “what it is”, and who then must struggle to change my identity from “author of 120 pages I bought” to “story teller of a movie I’m making”.
Because the words-on-paper is such a dominant part of our job, it has often subsumed all other aspects. Selling spec screenplays makes it that much harder to say, “I’ve invested in a human and his vision,” when they can just as easily say, “I’ve invested in a property that someone might be able to make a movie out of.”
There are some conditions under which spec sales make great sense. If you’ve already established yourself as a partner-writer with a company, selling a spec can be a great way to maximize your reward. Studios tend to pay a premium for them (although it’s my strongly-held belief that a terrific pitch in treatment form is no more speculative a purchase then a screenplay of that story).
Also, writers trying to break in typically find it hard to get into a room to pitch, and when they do, there’s suspicion about their ability to execute their stories.
For the workaday screenwriter in Hollywood, however, I still believe pitching is one of the best ways to elevate our identity from authors-of-text to authors-of-motion-pictures.
If you disagree, let me know. But I bet if I just had eight minutes in a room with you…I’d change your mind.
Excellent points. Never considered how a pitch makes the whole process seem like one of collaboration instead of just creation.
Also love the idea of a pitch being a story’s tantalizing “potential energy,” as opposed to a script’s easily quantified (and, let’s face it, generally less intriguing) “kinetic energy.”
I disagree. Writing a spec is better, mostly for strategic reasons.
You can only pitch your idea to one buyer at a time, so if the first buyer makes an offer, you have to decide whether a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Whereas with a spec script, the whole town sees your material at the same time, which raises the price if there are multiple bidders.
I was working at a studio a few years back when we made a pre-emptive purchase of a pitch, and we made the writers stop pitching in the middle of their next meeting. The writers will never know if that meeting would have yielded a higher bid. Or the next one after that, or the next one.
Conversely, if you get a couple-three passes in a row on your pitch, the development community will get wind that you’ve already been shot down a few times and they’ll lose interest. Your meetings will get postponed, or cancelled altogether. Or the exec will just do the meeting out of deference to your agent, without having any intention of buying your pitch.
Having a finished spec will also make it easier to attach a director, a movie star, extra financing, etc.
Plus, studios now involve marketing and distribution execs in their material buying decisions, so the more layers and people you have to penetrate in order to get a yes, the better off you are with a hard document as opposed to a performance.
Creatively, in selling a pitch, you leave yourself exposed to the possibility of getting notes before you ever put pen to paper. Letting studio execs access to your movie before it’s fully realized invites second guessing and inertia, which is the last thing you want at the very beginning.
Erring on the side of writing on spec versus pitching alleviates a number of uncertainties writers face:
Is this my ‘brand’ of material? Will people trust me to execute this story if it’s not?
Am I a high-profile enough writer that the whole town will be eager to hear a pitch from me?
Is this story suitable for pitching, or would it be more effective as a spec?
And, even if you don’t sell your spec, it’s still a sample your agent can use to put you up for other gigs. You can’t use pitches as writing samples.
Unfortunately, writers see writing on spec as a last resort, and that it’s ‘too much work’ to write a whole script and not sell it.
The truth is, if you sell a pitch to an executive, and then as a test, you went back in time and took the same project out as a spec screenplay, and you showed it to the same executive, you’re still going to sell it.
There’s no way the exec. would say, “Y’know, I would have bought it as a pitch, but not as a spec.”
Therefore, you’re better off writing on spec so you can show the material to the whole town all at once, and take advantage in the event there are multiple bidders.
I find both Craig and Ben’s points compelling.
But, I don’t think I would pitch very well and since I have very little time to write, I only want to write scripts that I want to write (which, I know, puts me squarely in amateur-hour land). This probably means I’ll never sell a script, let alone have a script filmed—but oh well, that’s why I keep the dayjob ;-)
Cheers, T
P.S. Looking forward to SM 4.
Ben:
Reasonable points. In order to combat pitch fatigue and maintain a sense of bidding, I have always set my pitches up competitively and over the course of two days.
Everyone is aware that there is a two day window in which to bid. Preemptive bids are acceptable, but it’s always the writer’s choice to not take them (just as it is with specs, BTW).
If you set it up properly and warn everyone in advance that the pitch is going out over 2 days to every studio in town, you create the same market conditions that a Friday spec mailing generates.
Craig’s points are well argued, as always, but I have to agree with Ben, at least given the kind of material I write (which reads much better than it would pitch, regardless of how brilliantly I could pitch it). In addition, if I’m passionate enough about something that I want to write it, I’d rather spec it and risk never getting paid for it than sell it as a pitch only to have it so neutered by exec notes that any passion I had for the material is gone by the time the commencement check arrives.
That said, Craig’s point about pitching making the writer seem like a collaborator rather than the anonymous author of a script is well taken…but given that WGA rules (I believe) require the author of a spec to get the guaranteed first rewrite, a spec writer will get a shot to prove his collaborative skills at that point…and he has at least had one shot to execute his ideal version of the story. And he’ll probably get more money for the spec than he’d would for a pitch…
Denise:
I’m glad you brought up the point of the obligatory draft.
When you sell a pitch, the studio is obliged to hire you to write the first draft.
When you sell a spec, the studio is obliged to hire you to write the first rewrite of the spec.
The difference?
The screenplay of the pitch is almost always anticipated. The “must rewrite” of the spec is often viewed as perfunctory.
Why?
Like I said before, companies buy specs typically because they see much possibility. If the screenplay itself is a good execution of the story, that bodes well for further collaboration. Often, it is not viewed as such, and the next draft becomes viewed as a “we have to let him do this before we can fire him” step.
After all, if you like the story but not the execution of a spec, chances are you’ll like the story but not the execution of that same writer’s next pass.
I prefer to write to positive anticipation whenever possible.
Ben: you make a good point about being able to attach other assets to the project more easily with a spec… but how would that be different from getting a director’s attention once the “pitched script” is written?
And while writing a spec might be useful as a sample, wouldn’t you rather know if your idea is market-worthy BEFORE you spend all that time writing it? Some folks—like me—don’t have that option, but if I did, you can be damn sure I’d take it. And you can bet I’d take my pitch to whoever I thought would give me the most money first.
Aside from all that, I think Craig’s main point (and Craig, sorry if I’m wrong) was that pitching makes it more about “branding yourself” to the prodco/studio, which ultimately makes you much more valuable than any single script would… and makes it much harder for them to boot you and bring in someone else to do the inevitable rewrites.
Craig:
Fair enough…but I still prefer to spec, at least when it comes to something I want to write (vs. an idea that I could write and wouldn’t mind writing…but wouldn’t write unless I got paid for it). But I’d also prefer my specs never get produced than see them botched, so while my stance means I may well go to my grave without ever seeing any of my original ideas produced, at least it’s internally consistent. ;)
I disagree w/Ben and Denise. Though Ben?s time travel scenario at the bottom of his first comment sounds very intriguing ? it?s also highly speculative.
In a pitch you have the person in front of you. You have their attention. What you do with it is up to you. Fate is in your hands - a rare circumstance.
And you can make sure he/she/they get it! You see their HONEST reaction. I strongly believe “if you can’t pitch it, you can’t write it”. Because (a) if you know the story you want to tell you should have no problem telling it (in a room or on the page); and (b) even if you?re not the most eloquent person on the planet, a stuttering writer who is passionate about a project beats a white cover with some ink on it that is buried under a stack of screenplays any time!
Also keep in mind the time factor. It takes about 1-2 weeks to develop a solid pitch. You go out with it, see if there’s interest, can even adjust your game from meeting to meeting (if the same issues keep coming up). If a studio/producer/company bites, you go into draft knowing you’re not wasting your time. And they feel - rightfully so - they are truly part of the creative process, which ultimately will help actually getting the film made. And that?s the goal isn?t it ? to make a film and not just to tell a story on a 110 pages.
Depends on how you define “wasting your time.” I don’t consider writing a script I want to write a waste of time regardless of whether it ever sells, and in fact my career, such as it is, was launched by a script that hasn’t sold to this day.
My attitude toward scripts may not make sense to most screenwriters, but that’s where I’m coming from. Obviously, if your primary goal is to make money and/or make movies, then you’ll have a very different definition of “wasting your time” and a very different attitude toward pitching vs. specking.
Denise:
Of course writing a spec is not a waste of time. I didn’t mean to offend your personal practice. But pitching is 100% business. You don’t go in for fun, or for the artistic experience of it all. You go in to make a sale, i.e. get a gig, i.e. have someone pay you to write a story with the intent of making a film, i.e. it’s a good thing. Hence my comment in context.
Craig,
Further to your post about taking your pitch out over two days—how do you hit all the buyers over such a short period?
Along with the ten or so full fledged studios, you have divisions within each that could potentially buy your pitch, plus myriad other mini-studios and production companies who might not be able to back a whole movie, but which have development monies available, even for sizable quotes such as yours.
Check it out—let’s start with the beach and go east and north:
Sony Fox New Line Paramount Warners Universal Disney DreamWorks
Plus all their separate divisions.
Then there’s:
Lion’s Gate Gold Circle Spyglass Revolution Village Roadshow Mandalay Steve Tisch (Escape Artists) Intermedia Icon Lakeshore Morgan Creek/James Robinson Radar Phoenix New Regency Bill Mechanic
I’m not even naming them all. Rob Paris and his company Mission have money, Mosaic claims to have money—the list goes on.
C’mon, even if some of the above-listed companies aren’t likely to buy a pitch, they’ll still listen to you since you’re a big writer. You can’t cover the whole town in two days; you’re selling yourself short, aren’t you?
Ben
Johnny:
No worries, no offense taken. Just saying that some of us prefer to spec under almost all circumstances, Craig’s arguments notwithstanding. :)
Ben:
Well, let me put a finer point on it. :)
For every idea I have, there’s usually only six or seven probable buyers for it.
For instance, prior to the recent regime change at Paramount, I wouldn’t have bothered pitching a comedy there. They just didn’t seem to be in that business.
Spec scripts are often targeted to a limited number of buyers, and the same goes for pitches. I haven’t been out for a few years now because I’ve been working for just one studio, but when I’ve gone out with pitches, it’s been targeted.
I can recall a day where I pitched three studios. Crazy day, but good day.
If I had a pitch that I really wanted the world to hear, then I would schedule it over the course of a week. The beauty is that when a buyer gets outbid out on a spec it’s a business failure, but when they get outbid on a pitch it’s a business and personal failure, and it makes them that much more interested in figuring out a way to get into business with you.
Craig,
Many thanks for your replies and insights. Love the site.
Ben
I appreciate the kind words, Ben. Tell a friend! :)
Yeah, that’s the rub, isn’t it? If you had the eight minutes…
I’d love to have eight minutes of some Disney exec to explain why my adventure/drama of two teenagers adrift on a sailboat is just the thing for them — but no exec worth his parking spot would spare the eight minutes for some guy who has never sold a script to anyone.
Perhaps you have some secret screenwriter mojo to get ‘em to take the meeting that you’d like share…
Please clarify the difference between a pitch and a spec. We are a group of professors putting together a proposal for a documentary and need help understanding the process.
Thank you,
A spec screenplay is an entire screenplay written “speculatively”, i.e. without payment. Once a writer finishes his spec screenplay, he then attempts to sell it.
A pitch is a verbal description of a movie. If the buyer likes the description, he has the option of employing that writer to create a screenplay of that story.
Craig, clearly you, Ted and Terry are at such a level that you can go in and pitch a script that’s not yet written. However, for the rest of us scribes, even those of us with some success, we simply don’t have that level of access, much less ability. In my experience, and I believe it’s true for many, the gatekeepers tell us that ideas are a dime a dozen, it’s the execution that’s king, and that the script must already written before they’ll consider it.
I know that Craig likes to spawn debate : ) — but I think the reality is that one way is not better than another. Pitching allows you to get paid before you put pen to paper, but you will be taking studio notes before you write FADE IN. Spec-ing allows you to work out your story by yourself, but you may never get paid. Whether or not the movie will eventually get made with you as the writer when it goes into production is a toss-up. I doubt that statistically one way is more of a “sure thing” then the other.
There is a third way to get paid in Hollywood for “original” work and that is to take an assignment. This means that the studio has bought the underlying rights to a comic book, novel, video game, re-make, sequel, old tv show, what-have-you… and you go in and pitch your “take” on how you would turn this into a movie. Of course, you will not have the opportunity to pitch unless they have read something of yours that they have liked in the past. Still, I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of studio movies each year are generated off of an assignment.
Pitching’s great if you’re in a position to pitch. The aspiring screenwriter is never gonna get the opportunity to pitch and if they do, they’re never gonna pitch to the person who can actually say, “yes.” Also, I’m a professional TV writer who has had some moderate success with screenplays, but I’m STILL not in a position to pitch. Exec will take a meeting with me, but they won’t take me too seriously because I haven’t sold anything “big.” If you write a great spec and you have an agent, it’s gonna get passed around and you just might sell it. If you’re a new writer who just got an agent, beware the agent who sends you out on movie pitch meetings if you haven’t sold anything yet because in the unlikely event they buy your idea, they probably won’t let you actually write it. I’ve seen this time and time again.
Couple of points.
Assignments based on underlying material are mutually exclusive from original ideas one can spec or pitch, so I left them out of the decision-making argument.
For PJ and Rick…you’re both right. If you don’t have a choice between pitching or specking, then spec.
But if you do…I’m arguing you should pitch.
Nice site, Craig! Been dropping in from time-to-time, but here’s a topic I can dig into.
I’ve been fortunate enough to sell both pitches (that’s how I broke in,) and most recently, a spec, to major studios — my first pitch sold to TriStar, the new spec to Disney. So I’ve looked at life from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, when it comes to one vs. the other, I don’t think I could disagree with you more, my friend.
For one thing, I have not found that pitching vs. specking (to use your spelling) ever earned me one iota more respect, loyalty or deference than a spec sale would have brought. Quite the reverse, actually — the attitude towards a writer selling a pitch seems to be, “Well, it’s not like this guy spent years on the thing, it’s just a pitch. He was here for 45 minutes. So what’s the harm if we change the idea completely, or just replace him? After all, someone on our list can write this up just as well as this guy, probably better. All it is is an idea.”
Or put more simply, it’s a lot easier to fire a guy who only pitched you a notion, than it is to fire a guy who has clearly invested a year or more on a finished, labor-of-love screenplay.
I’ve looked at this from both sides now as well. Last month I had a meeting at Paramount, where an exec told me about a project they’d just bought: “The original writer’s doing his first draft now, but once that comes in, would you be interested in doing a rewrite?” I laughed and said, “Hey, come on, GIVE THE GUY A CHANCE, will ya? He just might surprise you with a good script, you know!”
And why are execs suddenly talking to me about rewriting other people’s work now? Because I sold a spec last summer, that’s all. I am precisely the same writer I was prior to that sale, of course, only not to them.
Another reason: when the spec sale was announced in Variety, execs were able to ask my agent for copies — or more often, ask each other — and read my work immediately after hearing about it in the trades. They would not have been able to “get a copy of my pitch,” and even if they had, I doubt their response would have been, “Oooh, that sounds good, let’s get him in here.”
And yet further. The reason my first pitch sold so long ago — the reason I even got in the door at TriStar — was because I’d had a spec go out and win me a lot of attention. (This while I was living in Hoboken and working a full-time day job.) When a pitch doesn’t sell, that’s the end of that.
But when a spec doesn’t sell, it can still sit on someone’s shelf, can still win you fans, and meetings, and other work. Two years after my first spec didn’t sell, Sandra Bullock got around to reading it. Though she didn’t want to buy it either, she was impressed enough to ask my agent if Bill had anything else. We sent her a different script — the pitch I sold to TriStar, which by that time was a finished screenplay called JINGLE. She said, “I want to produce this” and had Warner Bros. buy it for her. (It’s now at Paramount, but that’s another saga.)
Had JINGLE still been this unsold pitch I had, instead of a finished screenplay that she could read, I doubt this would have happened. It definitely would not have happened if she hadn’t first read my spec — a spec that, though unsold, showed her exactly what kind of script I can write when not encumbered by studio notes from the get-go.
Sorry, I’m filibustering. (Or, to quote THE INCREDIBLES: “You got me monologuing!”) But I haven’t even mentioned that the sale of my first pitch didn’t even net me enough to quit the job in Jersey, but the sale of my first spec has changed my life forever. Monetarily, specking is better (if you sell it, of course). Career-wise, it’s been better even when the spec didn’t sell. And creatively, I have never been more satisfied with my work, nor treated better by those who bought it, than I’ve been after selling a fully-realized script that came out exactly the way I wanted it, just once.
At least that’s how I feel about it this week.
Bill
Bill:
I was waiting and waiting and waiting… :)
You didn’t disappoint.
Full disclosure. Bill cowrote a spec script with Terry Rossio that recently sold for seven figures.
I was thinking of you and Terry when I wrote:
There’s nothing that will ever stop studios from buying pitches and specs for the basic story only and immediately plotting to replace the writers. It happens all the time. However, I obviously see things differently on how the odds work with that.
I would argue that I have empirical proof that selling a pitch for a million bucks actually gets you more buzz around town than selling a spec for a million bucks, because:
Of course, if you pitch to a few places and fail to get a sale, you can still write the pitch as a spec.
Finally, I’d suggest that you shouldn’t be too pleased with that script that came out exactly as you wanted it, just once. After all, when you write the first draft of your pitch, it’s entirely in your control, just as if it were a spec. No one else is in your room mashing the keys.
Nah, the “script the way I wanted it” is a red herring.
Save that satisfaction for the movie that comes out exactly as you wanted it, just once. I know you’re heading into that experience right now. I wish you the best!
Nnnn… I’m not sure I agree with you a hunnert percent on your policework there, Craig. Particularly “when you write the first draft of your pitch, it’s entirely in your control, just as if it were a spec.” Granted, that can be the case, if you’re fortunate — but have you never been given notes and had story meetings and been told what to do prior to commencing a first draft pitch script?
I certainly have. After I sold JINGLE (on a pitch), our exec at TriStar only asked me to change one of the leads from a girl to a boy, and condense the span of the story from one year to one night. Not exactly full creative control there.
On the other hand, Ted and Terry (my producers on that project) did convince him to let me write the first draft “my way” — so it can also happen that you do get to write the first draft of a pitch sale exactly the way you want it. But with pitches that’s an exception; with a spec, that’s the rule.
Also, after selling that pitch to TriStar, a grand total of nobody at the studio wanted to “get to know me.” You may be correct that “no one can read a pitch and therefore not like it,” but then they can’t love it either. I guess I’m a glass half-full kind of guy — I don’t worry that if people actually get to read my work, I’m in trouble, better avoid that as much as possible.
Not saying that you are, either, but the strategy you quote sure sounds that way. Which puts me in mind of that great line from SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER, paraphrased: “You’ve got to play to win. You’re playing not to lose.”
If I agreed with your assumptions — that a pitch can sell for the same money as a spec, and that upon selling it you can have the same creative control — then I would likely also agree that pitching is a better way to go. Those assumptions simply haven’t proven true in my general experience.
Bill
Bill, thanks for weighing in—especially since you’re weighing in on the right side of this debate. :)
Craig, this is pretty telling to me:
When you’re in a position to get seven figures for a pitch—or for anything—things are a little different.
What if it’s a choice between selling a pitch for $150k and selling a spec for $150k, which is probably a lot closer to the level most of your readers are at? How much buzz do you think that pitch sale buys you? Most of the people I know who got their WGA cards by selling pitches (or who sold pitches very early in their careers, when they were at the low-six–figure level) ended up trapped in meetings forever before they were even commenced, and by the time they were commenced, they were writing a script so different from the pitch they sold much of the joy was sucked right out of them and it (and the money was gone, too—commencement on a $150k draft-and-set deal doesn’t go all that far)…in addition, those scripts have usually gone unproduced and are so distant from what the writer might have wanted to do they’re not even good samples.
Granted, a $150k spec sale probably won’t get too much buzz, either, but as Bill points out, at least with a spec sale you’ve got it ready and waiting in case anybody calls and says, “Hey, can I read that?” And, like Bill, I have no concern whatsoever about people reading my specs (or the stuff I’ve written on assignment, for that matter, but that’s another argument)…after all, they were written because I passionately wanted to write them and they represent exactly the story I want to tell. And I don’t regret writing any of them, even though none of them has made me a millionaire. Yet. ;)
Which do i trust more; the eyes of the reader looking at the spec or the ears of the listener trying to understand the pitch? The formal, by about two hands reach (of many) or a personal memory worth.
One is a personality contest, a voice over live, an active representation of something possible and certainly variable from the start. The other is fixed evidence. Solid, final, a decision made on facts rather than probabilities.
Two ways available doesn’t make both a sure shot at a deal.
But consider this too… the location and the means of a meeting accessible (or not) to the writer (have i just typed the word writer, that speaks and listens like everyone else?) and the abysmal expenses of such promotional tool.
Sure: “We wanna meet that person, now!” It’s what comes next. Dress casually, be persuasive, act (oops, the “acting” pattern staged) naturally, please the crowd.
I have a crowd, it has a mind of its own and can read or not - later or staring at me trying to convince them they should.
The advantages of a pitch is that the demonstrative outweighs some quality of text. Borrow my pages, memorize the essential, hump in a car, show off at a gathering, talk about it. A writer (on spec or otherwise) has invested the work and the time already.
Agents should pitch their clients stuff, that’s what they’re paid for anyway. Being within affordable reach of the potential buyers.
Bill:
You can choose to change your story after you sell a pitch. You can choose to change your spec after you show it to family and friends or agents.
Up to you. Entirely up to you.
I’ve never sold a pitch that the studio wanted to immediately change. I try and suss out what it is that they think they’re buying. I don’t like writing the “wrong” thing. I don’t even know how to do it.
On the other hand, I admit that I’m far less attuned to the joy of “telling the story the way I want to without prior input”. It’s just not something I particularly value. Generally speaking, I take the input I like and challenge the input I don’t. Either way, I’m not writing it if I don’t like how it feels.
Both the Spec and Pitch camps make good points. I just wanted to throw in my decision process.
If you’re writing something in the genre you’re best known for (“in your wheelhouse,” shudder), then I think pitching makes a lot of sense. Buyers know you, your style, and already want to work with you. I’ve done the four-studios in a day drill, and it’s fun.
If you’re venturing pretty far outside your normal realm (such as a comedy guy writing an historical epic), then you’re probably better off spec-ing it, so buyers know you can really do it. Before I wrote Go (a spec), I was only getting hired to write kids’ movies.
For what it’s worth.
John:
Couldn’t agree more.
Alas, my wheelhouse is “crap”. However, I wrote a script on assignment once that delivered something far more dramatic than the studio was expecting (and happily, it was well-received, although currently unproduced).
I use that and another assignment that resulted as my “specs” to show range, even though I’m fairly certain I’ll be writing crap for the rest of my life.
It’s my wheelhouse.
Craig,
Would you then suggest that starting out a writer should write 2-3 specs that are in significantly different genres (say a romantic-comedy and an action or drama) to show range?
T
Trevor:
If you are a versatile writer, then sure! Showing an ability to write in different genres only increases your opportunity for employment.
My own skills seem most useful for comedy, but I’ve tried to show versatility within that genre. I’ve written broad comedy, character-driven comedy, dramedy, spoof, etc.
I did a rewrite on a horror film once. It intrigued me enough that I might consider doing it again one day.
Well, you and I are both agreed that we hate writing the wrong thing, so there’s that.
If you have never had a studio want to substantially change your story immediately after buying your pitch — well, that’s amazing. I wish I had that kind of kismetic luck.
Another problem with pitching that comes to mind in the wake of this, is that in-between pitching the project and delivering your first draft, often the exec forgets what he bought. Or misremembers what you pitched him. Or says, “No, this is all wrong, I thought it was going to be like X” — X being something that you could never have imagined him expecting from the pitch you gave.
This has happened to me. On JINGLE, one of the things I said right there in the pitch was, “It’s like a cross between E.T. and WAR OF THE ROSES. This elf and this little girl can’t STAND each other.” And that’s what Chris Lee bought.
When I delivered the first draft, he had big problems with it. I’ll never forget that conference call: “The tone is all wrong. I mean my God… it’s like WAR OF THE ROSES or something.”
Yes, he actually said the same movie I mentioned in my pitch. The very thing I promised to deliver — the very thing he bought — he used to point out to me what I’d done wrong. So much for the buyer and me getting on the same page thanks to my brilliant pitch…
Whereas with a spec, at least there’s a page to get on in the first place.
Bill
Bill:
So far, so good with the pitching and the first drafts.
Of course they want to change things after they get the first draft. What your Jingle story tells me is that the buyer wouldn’t have purchased it on spec (because he didn’t like your story) but he did purchased it as a pitch (because of the possibilities).
You still got a chance to write it the way you wanted to write it.
If you had specked it, he would have objected prior to purchase. If there’s anything to be said for that, it’s that you have a better sense of what the buyer really thinks. On the other hand, that’s a sale that wouldn’t have happened.
Terrific discussion here. I have one question and one sort of coment/question, I guess comstion or quement:
If you pitch, a studio accepts your pitch, and then you go ahead and write the first draft, does that draft then belong to the studio? I mean, if they then decide they’d rather it be more of a urban themed gang film than a western and bring in someone else to make it that, can you take your original idea and start trying to sell it again? I just want to compare it to, say, optioning a spec, which you can get back if the option runs out.
Second, one thing I’ve noticed is that even after working out a notion, then pasting up an outline, and finally writing out a first (or even third) draft I’ll come to a point where I think a fairly drastic change would significantly improve the story. That is, my idea of what the story should really be grows more clear through the rewrite process. Given this, I’d be worried that pitching would prevent me from making the sorts of changes that I think have hleped my writing in the past. Perhaps with moer experience I’ll have a better idea of how a story should be from the beginning, but I suspect I’ll always be doing a bit of barking my shins in the dark during the writing process.
Steven:
If you sell a pitch and write the screenplay of the pitch, the pitch is purchased as well (either on its own as a treatment, or as the story incorporated in the screenplay you write).
If the company truly wants an entirely new story, I’d probably negotiate to “unsell” my pitch and sell them their new story for the same price.
The shin-barking process you describe is something with which I’m rather familiar. The truth is that nothing stops you from writing the first draft you want to write. Nothing. Indeed, I’ve found that producers and executives appreciate your willingness to adapt and change as you progress. Once again, it shows your loyalty to the best story for the movie, rather than the story you’ve already written.
Re JINGLE —
It’s true that had I specked it, that buyer, TriStar, would likely have passed. So you’re probably right that “that’s a sale that wouldn’t have happened.”
It is also true, however, that once the script was complete, it did sell to three other studios who’d passed on it as a pitch. (That’s one after the other, and not counting a fourth studio who made us an offer that we refused.)
So let me see, that’s one sale that wouldn’t have happened, vs. a bidding war that would have happened between four other studios who liked it better as a completed screenplay than they had as a pitch.
Which of those sounds better again?
Bill
Bill:
It depends. I can’t remember…were you still in your “breaking in” period during those pitches? If so, I’ve qualified my remarks to state that pitching is best for those who have at least established some track record proving that they can execute a story in screenplay form.
If not, you must really suck at pitching. :)
Great site, Craig. Some of the liveliest discourse on the art and commerce of screenwriting I’ve found on the web.
Just wanted to show a little appreciation for your efforts.
Gary
Is one way really better than the other or is Craig really excellent at creating conflict? (Or is that a compound question?)
Gary:
Thanks so much! Please spread the word. We’re growing each week…
Jon:
I’m going to say “yes” and “yes”. :)
Craig is definitely excellent at promoting debate (doesn’t that sound so much nicer than “creating conflict?”)
Stephen: here’s the funny thing about your question regarding wanting to alter your screenplay after pitching… my partner and I turned in a first draft that stuck exactly to the treatment we pitched. The studio’s reaction: “You wrote the pitch?!” Those were the exact words coming out of the studio president’s mouth, like what we had done was heinous. Uhh, yeah… we liked what we pitched and so we wrote the pitch. He was pissed that we didn’t change a thing. Oh, well.
The opposite has also occurred. “Boy, you guys went way off-pitch.” Yeah, once we got into the nuts and bolts some things worked and some things didn’t. “Well, we really wanted to see how it might have worked.” Trust us, you didn’t. We saved you a step.
The reality is: write the screenplay that you want to see made, whether you go off-pitch or not.
Craig: empirical question for you since I figure your researching skills (and access to the answers) are better than mine… of the original screenplays produced by major studios last year, how many were generated from pitches and how many were from specs? And in each category, how many had only one writer throughout the process? I would be curious to know, but don’t worry about it if that info is too difficult to attain.
Let me rephrase that… “is too time-consuming, cumbersome or an out-and-out a waste of time to attain,” is what I meant to say.
Man, that’s a good question, Derek. I could probably find out how many Guild projects have had only one participating writer.
My partner and I pitched an original back in ‘96 and we were the only writers employed for the duration of the development and production!
Movie wasn’t very good, though.
Great site, great discussion. For the most part I write on assignment but I recently sold a spec to Paramount (only my second spec script in ten years) and found the experience fascinating. The script was a very involved sci fi epic that would have been impossible to pitch (maybe Craig could’ve done it but not me). The tone, the mythology, the huge canvas…I would’ve spent half an hour just setting up something that I could very elegantly immerse a reader in gradually throughout the script. When it went out as a spec it was also explained to buyers that it was part 1 of a larger story. It ends on a cliffhanger. So any studio considering buying it knew this: I gotta have an appetite for a big movie. I gotta maybe have an appetite for more big movies. And I gotta have an appetite for JOSH’S VISION of these movies. In fact, after the spec went out I spent the better part of a couple days on the phone and in offices with execs who wanted to discuss where the story was going, how I envisioned the whole thing, etc. “Are there aliens, Josh?” “What happens in the third film?” “What do the aliens look like?” All questions that could’ve been asked in a pitch context but seemed more relevant given the fact that I’d already written a movie they were interested in. I was being treated like the filmmaker that we all imagine ourselves to be when we sit down at the keyboard.
The rewrite process has been equally heartening: the studio exec looked at me and said “This is your vision. I’m just gonna tell you the general idea of what we want, assuming you agree with it I trust you to go find the solutions.” (But check in with me in two months and see if I’m singing a different tune.)
An interesting (and a bit chilling) side note: At least on two occasions I was asked by studios considering my spec: “What source material is this based on? It’s so fully imagined and detailed”. My response: I’m the source material (you asshole). It’s as if studio execs can’t accept screenwriters as actual story tellers, not just idea sellers. And maybe for that reason alone I fall on the side of writing, not pitching.
Excellent point, Josh. I literally had that same argument with a creative exec last week who didn’t believe sci-fi specs could sell to the studios because of the “iconography” factor. In his words, the fully-realized world in which fantasy and sci-fi stories must take place is the domain of storytellers, i.e. novelists, not screenwriters. “What about Star Wars?” I argued. He actually frowned at me and said, “That was a book first.” Apparently he never saw Joe Nussbam’s short “George Lucas in Love” :)
BTW, I’m jealous as hell you’re working with DePalma on “The Black Dahlia”!
Star Wars, Matrix, Alien, Terminator. None of these big “brands” before they became big “brands”. (BTW…I actually sold my spec to Fox but for some reason I wrote Paramount). Maybe I should’ve pitched my comment first instead of writing it.
Hey guys! Just discovered this site and it’s a Godsend. Unlike many of you, I suspect, I’m a virtual novice at screenwriting. A baby. I first sat down to write in late April of 2004 and, within a year, had the good folks at DreamWorks asking if my Attorney (I don’t have an Agent) could please send them a copy of my screenplay. I guess that would make it a spec? (Still waiting to hear from them, but I keep telling myself “Cannes just finished, Cannes just finished, Cannes just finished … ”
The whole process of selling a screenplay, of getting someone interested enough in what you’ve created to meet with you, fascinates me. So, is it often the case where if a studio or prodco likes what you send them you’ll end up meeting them to … I dunno. Pitch your spec?
Yeah, silly question, I know. But I’m new and learning this all step-by-embarrassing-step. And I can’t wait to continue reading all your ongoing trials, travails and eventual glorious successes. :-)
Jon:
Sure. If they like your sample, a “general” meeting often follows, in which you might pitch them a very brief idea, or perhaps just talk about the kind of stuff you like.
A lot of times they mention open assignments they have, in the hopes that you can provide them with a take on how to improve it.
Oh, and welcome to The Artful Writer!
I too am just starting out, more or less. I’ve been writing scripts for a few years but, after sort of falling out of the scene for a while, I’m attempting to go full throttle back into it. My question then, partly echoes Jonathan’s.
I do not currently have an agent, however I have a casual working relationship with an established producer. He’s done I don’t know, fifteen or so major motion pictures in the past, some classics, but not much lately. His office reads my stuff and generally gets it read around town, and for someone coming from nowhere, that’s a godsend (I think).
I believe what they hope to get out of me is the producer credit in the deal they make with a studio. Is this normal? Do producers take on writers like this? Should I be worried? Do producers call writers in to pitch if they are interested in producing a project? I’ve also heard that having a producer kind of adopt you is in a way better than having an agent, because they have more at stake in taking on your project.
And thank you for running such a great site, I’m learning a lot!
I came across this by chance, and thought I would drop a line, even though the thread may have exhausted itself, because I feel very strongly on this subject.
Before I had an agent, holding down various jobs, I was writing spec scripts. Had about five of them, and just kept writing, you know, one after another after another.
In 1995 I optioned / sold three of them: “Long Hello and Short Goodbye,” “Spaceless,” and “Hardwired.”
Long Hello and Short Goodbye was made into a German-language film by Warner Bros in 1999. I’m still working on seeing the English-language version get to the screen—the thing has been optioned and re-optioned continuously since 1994, making me more money each time, and always returning to my control eventually. It’s going out to casting directors right now, yet again. Who knows? Maybe this time will be the charm.
Spaceless sold to Fox outright, and has been in development at Fox 2000, then Fox Animation, and now back at Fox feature division, with Gore Verbinski attached to direct.
Hardwired entered development hell at Disney, finally came out of it at Fox ten years later, and was released as “I, Robot” last summer.
I have spent ten years trying to see these three specs make it to the screen, and certainly I’m going to continue to add more years to the tally. I guess I felt compelled to write this because I myself would never, ever pitch a movie idea instead of just writing the spec myself.
Writing a spec script is the only time that you are ever going to be the sole author of your work. It’s the only time when it’s just you and the blank page. It’s what writing is all about.
I have been kept plenty bust since 1995, taking assignments for money, but none of that time has been as rewarding or as important to me, both in terms of my career and as a writer, then the time I spent working on original material on spec.
Writing is one person sitting in a room writing.
We all know that this is a difficult business. What was it that Orson Welles said? He should have quit the movies all together, maybe he could have been a great man. Movies are too big, the paint box is too big, and what he meant was that no one will ever allow you to use the paints or brushes you desire—no one will let you finish the painting yourself.
Movies are by their very nature collaborative, and the collaborative process is by its very nature detrimental to the things that make scripts great: originality, spirit, uniqueness of vision, one single strong compelling voice.
Writing that spec is the only time you will ever be left alone with your paint box.
Some people have said to me, I never write a word unless I get paid. Hey, if you feel that way, okay, but it doesn’t make sense to me. I would rather not get paid and write a spec—to have it in my hand—to really create.
My advice to people on how to break into the business? Write a spec, and then another and another. My advice to people on how to stay sane, and true to yourself? The same: write a spec.
No arguments needed. No feathers meant to be ruffled here. Just an opinion from a guy who has been in this business for over a decade, seen the absolute worst and seen highs—this is what I’ve learned—how I’ve decided I want to spend the large majority of the rest of my professional life: creating original material, on my own, facing the blank page. If I never have to pitch again, that’s fine with me.
You’re a writer? Go write something.
Oh, by the way, that guy who is asking about the idea of a producer taking you under his wing? Yeah, he is doing that so he can wrangle some kind of producing credit on your project. In my experience, friend, get the hell out of that situation as fast as you can, and find an agent.
If you believe that a) movies are collaborative, and b) collaboration is bad for screenplays, and c) screenplays are intended to be used to make movies…
…why are you writing screenplays to be made into movies?
Honest question.