JaneEspenson.com

This is a supplemental post to thank all the fans who came out in Hollywood last night to celebrate Buffy with the cast and writers at the Paley Center Event. They showed the whole musical episode, “Once More With Feeling,” which I hadn’t seen in years. I think it’s even more amazing than I realized at the time.

The fans were wonderful, treating even the writers like rock stars. It was wonderful and we all appreciate it so much! Thank you!

I’ve had a request to talk about pitching. Not the kind of story or joke pitching one does in the room, but the kind of prepared pitching that’s used to sell a pilot, or sometimes a freelance episode of a show.

I should tell you that my own ability with regard to this varies widely. If I stay calm, I can do very well indeed, but if I get too nervous — oof — I can crumble entirely. So the most important thing for me is to stay calm. You already know if this is going to be a problem for you, so plan accordingly.

Now, everyone likes to pitch differently. Some people read their pitch, others have no notes at all, most are somewhere in between, with notes that they consult, but don’t read directly from. I’m an in-betweener myself. I like to have practiced the pitch, but not to the point where it’s lost all meaning… if I’m doing it right, I’m actually thinking about the story as I’m telling it, and will sometimes change something as I go along. Sometimes, for example, they’ll tell you something about what they’re looking for that affects how you want to position your show, so you have to adjust on the fly. If they tell you all about how they really want family shows, you may want to emphasize the family scenes, for example, and downplay the role of the hooker.

To a certain extent, you get to choose how the pitch goes. If you want it to feel more like a conversation, then give a very short pitch and spend your time answering their questions. If you want more control, maybe you’ll give a more detailed pitch, which requires you to talk longer to preempt some of those questions. Even the longest pitch, however, shouldn’t be terribly long. I’m sure there are writers who talk for twenty minutes or more, but I think you’d be far better off concluding your main comments after five or ten.

Some writers start by naming and describing their characters, but I don’t like that approach. Listeners just aren’t good enough at remembering the names and attributes and fitting them into the story. Instead, I describe each character very briefly when they first appear in the story.

I start by talking about the genre and feel and point of the show. I might say,

“My pitch is for a show called ‘Giants’ and it’s a gritty adventure show that feels a bit like Schindler’s List meets Alien. It’s the story of how a rural farm wife becomes the leader of a resistance movement when disaster comes to the United States.” Or whatever the show is.

There is never a reaction, by the way, to this first introduction. I’ve recently realized that that’s because agents pre-pitch the idea for you. So the execs will already know that much. Anyway, I then either talk a little more about the series in general, or, often, I jump right into the events of the pilot episode:

“Okay. We start out on a farm in Nebraska where Tom, a 35-year-old farmer, is giving a tour to a bunch of Ag students from the local college when suddenly… “

I tell the story briefly, pointing out each act break and exciting revelation. I try to be animated and smiling and funny where I can be. I get excited and sit on the edge of the couch and wave my hands around a bit. I try not to let the story get bogged down in details, but to emphasize the emotional turns: “This is the moment when she realizes that no other leader is going to step forward. She reaches out and shakes the hand of the lead Alien and offers the use of her farm, gambling that she just made the Resistance stronger, not weaker…” — that kind of thing.

At the end of the initial bout of talking, I complete the story of the pilot, and maybe give a little glance forward: “We end the episode with that first thread of hope — communication with another small community that’s also been converted to an Alien arms factory. Ruth has grown into a true leader, although one faced with an overwhelming enemy.”

Then I say, loudly, “AND THAT’S OUR SHOW.”

It’s only after that that I mention that I have ideas for many sample episodes. They will ask to hear one-sentence versions of those.

Soon, it’s a genuine conversation and they’ll start giving real feedback mixed in with more questions. Sometimes it’s a quick “no,” sometimes it isn’t, but I’ve never been treated rudely or unkindly.

Believe in your idea. Be proud of it, excited by it, and put effort into showing it off. You might want to practice your pitch for friends, or practice out loud to yourself. But the most important thing I do, I think, is just to keep asking myself, as I prepare the pitch — what’s frakkin’ great about this story? Then sell that point. See? Easy!

Lunch: leftover Persian food: stew over crispy rice. Mm.

Friend of the Blog Alex Epstein sends along an interesting contemplation on a certain type of joke. I’m going to let you see his explanation and then present mine, which differs on a certain point. Here is how he explains it:

… Sometimes, I see good writers make fun of bad, obvious dialog and cliche. Saw a bit on Steven Moffat’s JEKYLL, ep. 3. A bunch of suits and techies watching the usual assortment of screens tracking Dr. Jackman:

I bet that sort of retort comes up a lot in story rooms; I wonder how often it makes it to the screen. (Network exec: “But how does the audience know he’s moving?”)

Oh, this is very interesting. I agree that this is totally about subverting the expectations of the listener. It never would have occurred to me, though, that this had to do with a response to exec-driven overwriting. I would have taken this (at least the first joke) more as a response to the real-life human tendency to state the obvious. And the second one I take as a response to the expected structure of normal conversation (i.e. “ever since…” is supposed to lead to a anecdote.) So for me, both of these are about someone reacting to a statement that was deficient in some way, but deficient because of the foible of a character.

However, I’m open to Alex’s interpretation, now that I hear it. Certainly, the first joke illustrates an excellent way to turn a “make it clearer” note into a benefit — have someone hang a lantern on the over-clarity and then, if possible, slap a topper onto it! (So much writers’ slang! Yay!)

By the way, the Buffy example reminds me of another classic Joss joke, in which someone tries to deflect a question by saying “it’s a long story,” only to have another character quickly sum up the situation, leading the first character to lamely say, “Guess it’s not that long.” The standard conventional rule is that “it’s a long story” ends any discussion. To go past it and deflate it is funny.

It’s making me curious about other jokes that do this. Oh! How about the Princess Leia/Han Solo moment: “I love you.” “I know.” That’s certainly a violation of how we know that exchange is supposed to go. If you’re writing a comedy or a drama with wit, it’s worth doing a bit of thinking about this kind of joke since there’s something so ingrained about conversational assumptions that these jokes always pack a nice punch.

Lunch: salad bar, squash soup

Gentle Reader Lauren from Michigan writes in with a question I haven’t seen before. She asks,

I was wondering when you are writing a script if you should include what musical selection you think should be played over the course of the scene and if so, should you be so detailed as to indicate which lines of the song would correspond best to the mood? How would you represent this in the script or is it best not to explore that aspect at all?

Great question. This actually is something you can do as a writer, although you should use it only very rarely and very carefully.

It’s not unheard of to indicate a song that you’d like to hear in a scene. Here’s a (slightly edited) stage direction from my first draft of an Angel script I wrote: The radio turns on my itself and changes stations, landing on the Mills Brothers singing “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” A SHADOW falls across Cordelia’s bed. An old lady voice comes out of nowhere…

And I can certainly imagine the last scene of a pilot looking something like this:

EXT. COURTYARD

And there, amid the wreckage of the wedding reception gone horribly wrong, Billie Holiday’s version of “Embraceable You” wafts over the broken tables. Charles pulls Audrey into his arms. Here, finally, they get their wedding dance.

Audrey laughs when Charles sings along for:

We PULL BACK until they’re very small in the frame, and then we…
FADE OUT

There. See how that could work? Of course, in the examples, the songs were actually part of the scene, not laid on top, but you can do that, too. For example, you could do a big moving montage of, say, all your characters going about their lives, like in the finale of The Wire, and indicate a song to play over it, perhaps even indicating which lines play under each image. It might be lovely, and would probably be scripted similarly to my example above, with the lyrics presented in dialog form.

But be very careful. I wouldn’t do any indication of specific lyrics if there were any dialogue in the scene, for example. And even in a silent scene, there’s going to be a tendency for lyrics to just make it seem too cute, too neat, too much like a “song fic,” if you know what I mean.

If you really want to, give it a try and map out the scene with the lyrics, but I bet you end up editing them out later. At the very least they’re frosting, and you’re going to want that room for more actual cake.

Lunch: Garlic chicken and a banana milkshake from Versailles, a Cuban restaurant. So wonderful!

ADDENDUM: The amazing Friend-of-the-Blog Wendy Wallace, an experienced producer, writes in with this observation from her end of the process: I just wanted to give a producer’s perspective on using songs & song lyrics in scripts. While it may not be pertinent for specs, I would remind your gentle readers that any songs used and/or any lyrics spoken by actors must be cleared & licensed accordingly before a script can be produced. Sometimes this is not a problem, but there are occasions where a song is unlicensable for whatever reason, necessitating either a complete revamp of the scene, last-minute shoe-horning of a different song into the existing scene (often not as fitting), or worse–a shelving of the script altogether. I’m not suggesting “never mention music in a script ever” as I’ve seen it used quite effectively, I would just encourage screenwriters–especially first-timers–to keep in mind the larger implications of their musical choices.

Wendy is right that this doesn’t have to affect writers of purely speculative scripts, although I will point out that a spec script loaded with expensive music requirements isn’t going to impress a reader with your ability to write to a budget.

Thank you, Wendy!

I think this has happened before. It seems like every time I post something here that seems to close a door, I get an email from a friend with a way to open it back up. Fantastic.

After my post about how sending an agent a letter probably wasn’t a workable avenue to job-having, I received the following communication from working writer and Friend-of-the-Blog, Gillian Horvath. Take it, Gillian!

I did get my first agent by sending a letter to someone I’d never met. I was at that time a young aspiring writer without a script sale. It wasn’t entirely a “cold call” — the agent had been recommended to me by a mutual acquaintance — but there was no personal connection. It was the letter that got me in the door to be read, and met, and signed.

The letter is your chance to convince the agent that you are going to make money for them — that you are committed to making a career, and that you are putting so much work into it that their job will be easy. In my cover letter, I was able to mention various contacts I had made and promising leads I’d created. I’d made those contacts by working as an intern and assistant around town, but I think the important thing isn’t the specifics of my progress — it’s the fact that I used the letter to report on that progress. I was able to realistically portray myself as on the cusp of selling, so the agent I’d approached could see the potential for getting a commission soon. That made it worth her time to consider my spec.

In a post-script, Gillian adds: Typing up the story really got me thinking about that transitional moment when I realized that you can’t approach an agent hunt (or a pitch meeting, or a job interview) as a complete supplicant. No one signs you because they want to do you a favor, right? They sign you — or hire you — because it’s going to be good for them.

So there you go, Nic in Germany and everyone else… excellent advice from someone who found a door that I didn’t even know was there. Inspiring! And that final observation is a huge one — when you’re dreaming about your big break, stop framing it as, “how can I get someone to do me a huge favor?” and start framing it as, “how can I make the case for what I have to offer?” (Then, don’t argue the case, build the case.)

Lunch: chicken soft tacos from Del Taco. As always, opt for the Del Scorcho sauce.

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