PITCHING

'Pitching' is when a writer has to try and sell a project (which at that point might exist solely in their mind) to a producer or commissioner by using out-loud words from their voice box.

Most writers have a weird love/hate relationship with pitching, I suspect because pitching seems like the purest possible form of storytelling. With none of that high-tech 'things written down on paper' nonsense, writers are stripped down to their most primal form: a lone bard in a smoky hall, weaving stories out of thin air in the hope their thane won't immediately pull out a sword and behead him because he's realised the story is clearly Beowulf with the serial numbers filed off (which most stories are).

The truth is, most writers are crap at pitching, because if they were easily able to hold a room of execs spellbound with their words, they wouldn't be making a living writing things down for other people to read out loud. And, weirdly enough, telling a gripping story isn't what you need to do in order for a successful pitch - what you're doing is showing the people with the chequebook that you have all the ingredients to make a whole succession of gripping stories if they'd just let you go away and get on with it.

You might think that going in with enormous confidence and giving the execs plenty of detail and colour would guarantee you that they'll at least give you a bit of cash to go away and write a ten page treatment or summat, but you would be this: WRONGO. And here's why.

I reckon, and this is in no way backed up by 'facts' or 'science', that two thirds of the execs you have pitching meetings with have already decided before you came in the room whether they were going to commission something or not. The other third might have a bit of cash floating about, which they're prepared to throw at you in a whim if something you say tickles their fancy. So your job is to not to mess it up, and one way you can do this is to go steamrolling in like Russell Crowe doing a radio interview for a project he REALLY believes in (if you heard him banging on about the Magna Carta for hours on end for that Robin Hood film, over the bludgeoned corpses of various BBC presenters, you'll know what I mean).

There are two kinds of writers who take the 'bludgeoning on for hours on end' approach: starting writers who need to conceal their terror of rejection, and more experienced writers who have a few series under their belts, and thus have become convinced they are storytelling GODS, from whose lips words drip like honey &c &c.

The worst pitch meeting I had was a few years ago with a very nice lady film producer I realised too late had spared me half an hour out of basic politeness. I decided to go in all guns blazing with a Thirties-set semi-historical monster movie that was loosely tied in with my own family history (no monsters in that, sadly). Sadly, this required describing a bit of background first, and I realised too late that there is nothing more boring than listening to someone else's family history, and I hadn't even got to the film idea yet. Also, it turned out the nice lady producer hadn't actually read any of my previous scripts, which meant she wouldn't get the tone I was going for. So I started skipping bits, grimly determined to get the end of my pitch, which, as I recall, ended with me sweating all over my fat face as I recited the deathless phrase 'and then they realise it wasn't the Owlman all along, and the Nazis leave, and, arm, it all works out fine'. READER, I DID NOT GET A FEATURE SCRIPT COMMISSION THERE AND THEN.

The same producer left the company a week or so later, which suggests she didn't have any money to spend anyway, which was of some small comfort.

The best pitch session I ever had was with another lady producer, for television this time, who had read plenty of my previous scripts, hurrah, and who I'd already had a couple of meetings with and knew to be totally nerd-friendly. I only found out later that she'd just sat through a pitch from a VERY distinguished television writer, which had already gone like this for half an hour:

DISTINGUISHED WRITER: … at which point Jake, of course you remember Jake, he's the one with the gammy leg, Jake makes the SHOCKING and APPALLING discovery that Helen, you remember Helen, she's the one with the twitchy eye, Helen is not his mother, BUT HIS SISTER!

Distinguished Writers sits back with a satisfied smirk. Lady Producer manages to drag herself back up from where she has slumped onto the sofa.

LADY PRODUCER: Right, well, that was very-

DISTINGUISHED PRODUCER: (triumphantly) ACT TWO!

LADY PRODUCER: (mumbles) Oh my fucksie.

Another half hour later, the Distinguished Writer departs, his PA scattering rose petals before him &c and I bumble in.

ME: Look, I'm completely fucked with a hangover, so can I just give you the gist of the thing in about three minutes? I can ABSOLUTELY give you more details if you need them, but I will need a very nice young lady or young man to bring me quite a strong cup of coffee first.

I give them the gist. THREE MINUTES LATER:

LADY PRODUCER: We'd like a script please.

ME: (puzzled) Are you sure? Don't you want a treatment or anything?

LADY PRODUCER: Nope, go and write a script, we'll talk to your agent.

ME: WOO HOO! Ow.

This is not to say I recommend going in to pitch meetings with a hangover, I totally do not. Unless it works for you, in which case, go for it.

Dialogue

After a day's hovering between feeling quite sick, then nearly all right, then quite sick again (I am now beginning to suspect my children's nursery down the road of using childcare as a mere research arm of a startlingly successful biological weapons research lab), it was with ENORMOUS bravery that I decided to get the sleeper train into london last night, banking either feeling much better this morning, or dying quietly somewhere on a quiet siding near Exeter.

Fortunately I lived! And turned on my phone this morning to see I had a voice mail message from half eleven last night. Which, as Patroclus had gone to bed about nine-ish could only mean one thing: SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAD HAPPENED.

In fact it meant another thing: someone had accidentally dialed my phone while, it turned out, saying goodbye to someone else. The someone was a lady, the someone else was also a lady, and they were saying goodbye to each other. I didn't recognise either of their voices.

Now broadcasting the results of this illicitly recorded conversation would obviously make me worse than a News International-employed tabloid journalist, but I'm going to do it anyway, because only by listening to real conversations, picking up on their rhythms, subtext, little clues as to the characters involved and so on can you call yourself a writer. If I couldn't work out which one of these female people had called me, or at the very least what they did for a living, my entire career was going to be called into question.

LADY 1: It was lovely to meet you.
LADY 2:And you!
LADY 1:Yeah.
LADY 2:Yeah.

Pause.

LADY 1: Bye then.
LADY 2: Bye.
LADY 1:Yeah.
LADY 2:Yeah.

Pause.

LADY 1:Oooh!

(there follows a completely unintelligeable bit of conversation).

LADY 2: No!
LADY 1: Yeah.
LADY 2: Well.
LADY 1: Mmm.
LADY 1: Bye then.
LADY 2: Bye.
LADY 1: Yeah.
LADY 2: Bye.
LADY 1: Yeah.

After listening to this three or four times, I have concluded that Lady 1 is a spy who has just returned from the Baltic States, where she has concluded a tricky bit of espionage involving high-tech startups being funded by shadow corporations with the money being channelled through Estonia. Lady 2 is almost certainly a gardener. Possibly with one leg slightly shorter than the other. My career is safe.

Apologies to various people I was going to meet next time I was up in london, this is a bit of a tightly packed day, and at least two of the people I'm meeting are buying me food of one form or another, and thus have been moved to the top of the queue. UP YOUR GAME PRODUCERS.

EDIT: Ha, the very first thing the very first person I had a meeting with said was: 'erm, I may have accidentally left a message on your phone last night'. She was talking to her neighbour about putting the bins out. CASE CLOSED.

A Producer Writes:

Re: the previous post, 'Paul' says:

Just wanted to say that not all producers are alike. On the last three projects I've developed, the writer has been paid more than the producer. FAR more. I'd say I've made 10% of what I've paid writers over the past couple of years. Now that one of those projects is complete and going out to market, I expect to make some back end - but that's after three years of keeping a business open by hook and by crook. So, yeah, some producers skin writers alive, some producers don't. Try to work with the ones who don't, is my advice.

Which is a valid point, of course, and I should say that most of the producers I've worked with have been lovely, and generous, and all that - I certainly wouldn't want to suggest all producers are out to get as much work out of writers as they can for as little as possible, although arguable that is kind of their job. Some just work in big enough companies that they're pretty much divorced from the contracts/finance side, so don't have much influence over that side of things any way.

Today, for example, I've worked on two different outlines for no money, mainly because a) I like the projects, and b) they have a good enough chance of getting made that I'm betting on it paying off. But there's a limit on how far I'm prepared to go with that. The problem is, if you had a very strict 'never work for a producer who doesn't pay you every step of the way' policy, you'd be out of work pretty quickly, I'm afraid.

Have you considered a smaller desk?

An article I wrote appeared in this week's Broadcast, but they didn't pay me for it, there doesn't seem to be any facility for comments, and it's behind a (not terribly effective to be honest) paywall, so I may as well put it up here.

One thing comedy writers in particular quickly get used to is hearing how little money there is at the start of a project.

We’re constantly being told by production companies that if we do a treatment right now, they’ll find “money for development” (they won’t); that if we do a little script polish/total rewrite, “money can be moved around to pay for it” (it can’t); or this from a producer sitting behind a desk slightly bigger than my house: “Your script shouldn’t be a sitcom, it should be a film and I absolutely have money for this right now” (he didn’t).

However, in the past few years, I’ve moved from fairly regular, if relatively low-paid, gigs in comedy and kids’ telly to developing fewer, bigger, drama projects.

Lots of these I’ve been lucky enough to develop in-house with the BBC, where people do seem to talk to one another and money arrives fairly quickly – apart from one incident where it went to another writer with a similar name, quite possibly the estate of Henry James, whose custodians I think occasionally write confused letters asking why they’re getting Bob The Builder residuals.

Sadly, Gillian Anderson never came round to my house to ask for tips on House of Mirth (or if she did, I was out).

Tragically, because not all of my projects can rely on a vast and chilling corporate behemoth dedicated to breaking the backs and minds of innocent licence fee payers, I currently have a number of drama projects in development with those efficient and nimble free-market agents known as ‘independent production companies’.

This means that although on paper I’m doing far better than I was a few years ago when I was writing for Shaun The Sheep and Green Wing (effectively a sketch show, remember), and I handed in a script in March, I’m writing this with mounting overdraft fees on a laptop whose screen only works when it’s at an angle of exactly 60 degrees to the keyboard, and a rubbery nipple where an ‘M’ key used to be.

I can’t afford to replace my laptop because the increasingly insanely detailed contracts my agent is having to deal with, often including all-in format deals for outlines that are just a couple of pages long, mean that although the money is definitely there, my relationship to it is worryingly similar to that of a Dickensian urchin to his inheritance.

Of course, the producers themselves are often scrabbling for cash (although I can’t help feeling smaller desks would help). The problem is, fewer, bigger projects means bigger gaps for writers to fall down while they wait to get paid.

Managing expectations better would help. We know this isn’t a normal job, and all self-employed people learn to manage for gaps in their income, but if producers don’t start making the prompt payment of writers a priority, I foresee a dark future where all television scripts are churned out either by people who live in bins and thus have no outgoings, or the JulianFellowesBot 3000. And I really don’t want to see any more series about footmen.

➤James Henry has realised with a dark and terrible irony that a) he has possibly written this for no money; and b) he is currently working on a BBC4 project that includes footmen

Have you got any production company addresses I could send spec scripts to?

Lyvit asks:

"Hi James, Have you got any production company addresses I could send spec scripts to? I've tried the Writersroom but would like to give my work a better chance."

Hmm, I do have some production company addresses, but nothing you couldn't get by using Google. Also, it depends what kind of scripts you're writing - are they comedy, comedy-drama, animation, children's drama? There are literally ONE BILLION production companies, whose addresses range from Death Star-like edifices of chrome and glass, to a bloke in his flat who uses his cat as a PA and script editor. Bigger doesn't mean better, by the way. Nibsy is renowned as the best in the business.

So here's a thing to do: look for a show that's along the same sort of lines as the script you've written. IMDB it, look for the production company, and the name of the producer (don't worry about the exec producer, who usually operates on a higher spiritual plane, and often can't even see writers, on so high a level do their molecules vibrate).

The producer is the person to send it to, usually via the address of the production company on their website, although double check this, as Working Title didn't update the address on their website for about a year, which caused some bewilderment last time I went for a meeting, although it did lead to a hilarious Richard Curtis-style last minute dash by taxi, which I had to share with some posh bloke whose surname was Bumme, a man with no sense of smell, and Julia Roberts. No I didn't.

DO NOT send your script to a load of people who work in the same building, thinking 'well, at least one of them will read it', as the chances are, eventually all the people will read it, mention it to each other, then realise they haven't all discovered some interesting new writer on their own (the best case scenario), and be cross.

The difficulty isn't so much in getting your script read, although if you are expecting to hear back by the end of the week you will be disappointed. Most producers are desperate to find new talent with their own individual voice, even if the first thing they try to do is try and bend that voice into some totally unsuitable new show they've devised about a nineteen thirties milliner who travels though time to solve hat-crime. The difficulty is in getting it to a producer who isn't actively evil, who likes your voice, and appreciates you can a) tell a proper story, and b) tell it in a matter that is wholly your own. And c), has some money, but I can't help with that.

Make sure you take some biscuits for Nibsy.

New sport.

Conversation with daughter, who is now three years old, with a badge to prove it.

ME: How was nursery today then?
DAUGHTER: DYLAN PUSHED ME OVER! And then Henry pushed me over.
ME: Did you push them over back?
DAUGHTER: Yes.
ME: Okay then.
DAUGHTER: And then I pushed over some babies.

Slight pause.

ME: Hmm.

Daughter thinks about it.

DAUGHTER: Actually it was only one baby.
ME: (relieved) Oh okay, fine.

Lana Del Ray - 'Blue Jeans'

Good LORD do I like this song (via the Guardian's Tim Lusher). I only hope her plain looks don't count against her, the music industry can be a harsh place.



EDIT: annoying, the video's off the side a bit, and altering the 'width' bit in HTML doesn't seem to help.

Fewer, Bigger = Hungrier, Poorer?

Turns out you really should be careful what you write on Twitter, if for no other reason that after whingeing about the perilous financial implications of being a self-employed scriptwriter, I've now been asked to write a short piece for Broadcast Magazine, which just goes to show.

Here's the thing though, after moving back home to Cornwall after a brief excursion to Canterbury and then Shepherd's Bush via the estate of @Patroclus, my portfolio seems to have drifted from multiple, small commissions in the arena of comedy and kids' telly, to larger, but fewer development commissions along more drama-ish lines. So the former = writing lots of little scripts for already-established shows that have a good chance of making it onto the telly, while the latter = fewer but longer scripts that may never see the light of day, but are at least about characters and settings I devised myself.

Now on paper, the latter move should be making me slightly more money, which is to say about two and a half grand per year more than I was making behind the counter at a bookshop, with about the same proportion of staring into the distance and sighing.

But it's not working out that way, mainly because of the huge lag between handing a finished script in, and it being accepted/greenlit for production (for the non-scriptwriters, script payments are broadly broken down into two stages: first half when you accept the job, second half when the final draft of the script is accepted by the person who commissioned it). And the lag is getting longer and longer, which leads to situations like my being owed approximately eleven grand for a script I handed over in March, but with no sign of any cash on the horizon. And although I have plenty of other projects on the go, most are spending a lot of time stalled at similar stages. Sadly, and I've checked this, there are no charities specifically set up to pay writers' overdraft charges while they wait for cheques to come in, so although I might be owed enough money to cover three months, say, of writing outlines, concepts and even entire scripts on spec, I actually seem to be losing money, which is almost entirely the opposite of my business plan.

Traditionally, writers like to blame EVIL PRODUCERS for this sort of thing, or LAZY AGENTS, but I don't think this is the case. It seems more like a case of broadcasters being very careful with their budgets, with a lot of production companies chasing fewer and fewer slots. So.... dunno, any other writers having the same problems? Or producers or agents who'd like to give a bit more context? All comments gratefully received, and may help me write a better short article without looking like a tit.

Right, I'm taking the chiddlers out for a walk now. I expect your answers ON MY DESK.