Saturday, May 21 at the Northwest Screenwriter's Guild, Bill and I offered a workshop on powerful pitching, followed by a unique brand of pitch critique for participants in a pitch competition. In both the training and the judging, we tag-teamed as a writer/director to cover both the story being pitched, and you as the presenter of the pitch. We spent a substantial section of the training focused on what maximizes presence, specifically what zaps people of their presence under pressure, and then what brings them back to confidence.
This approach mirrors to what we do in other industries that pitch under pressure, but we didn't know for sure how it would land with this audience. We were pleased that it was a big success and seemed very highly regarded. Key to the process was a appreciation technique we use that points your attention off of yourself, followed by a story process that structures your pitch using the same basic mechanisms that a writer would use to structure a story.
The judging was really exciting, because each person who pitched in the contest received feedback from both their story pitch and their performance of pitching it. We worked hard to encourage realistically, which meant giving them truthful responses, yet providing a key activity that can help them improve. The feedback we got was that it was unlike any other pitch judging these screenwriters had received. They said the hybrid approach of performance and story together readied them for the job at hand of promoting their projects far better than anything they'd received in a pitch critique before. We were glad to help and appreciated the confirmation that a writer/director team made sense in fostering growth, which is exactly what we care about most, and what motivated us to sign up for something like this in the first place. We expect to be taking this process to other pitch competitions in the future.
I was there and let me tell you that Bill True and Dean Hyers are a breath of fresh air. Their presentation is so down-to-earth, so human. They cut right through all the pretense that can come with commerce. I've always felt that people talking business, especially show business, sometimes seem to switch off their humanity, hiding themselves behind facades of 'business-like' behavior or puffed up ego.
Bill and Dean dare to recognize it doesn't need to be that way and, frankly, it's better if we're more fully human in all our interactions-whether it's business or art. We don't need to compartmentalize or try to act our way through those important pitches. When we dare to meet whomever we encounter, even in business, as our authentic selves, everyone wins.
Thanks, guys. We look forward to seeing you again soon in Seattle.
Posted by: Marcella Guerriero | June 10, 2008 at 11:56 AM