Pitch Positive by Peter Wintonick

Summary : In order to envision a new system of pitching docmedia projects it may help to have some observations and background on the historical development, the business and art of existing public pitching systems for documentary media. This article offers commentary about the strengths and weaknesses of the different public pitching systems which have grown up around the world over the last two decades. It ends with a few recommendations for improving existing systems but really is a call to pitching arms, as we offer you all the opportunity here in the DocAgora webplex to imagine and contribute to building a new, equitable, modern, flexible docmedia pitching system.

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You know, I must confess. All my life has been a game show. I am a game show junkie. I am not being metaphorical here. I am serious. In the early 1970’s I put myself through film school working for small change on the weekends by testing out game shows. I managed to work on an array of 10,000 (Canadian) dollar-name-that-tune-college-quiz-bowl-pyramid-beat-the-clock type game shows. Growing up in Ottawa, I was party to a group of US-based producers who developed prototype game shows and pilots working out of the CTV affiliate there. These shows would be syndicated and exported to US. Let’s just call it as a reverse osmotic transfer of information technology. Or, Canadian revenge. I don’t know why they chose Ottawa, other than the fact that there is a cloister of clowns populating the Parliament buildings. Or maybe Ottawa was demographically correct.

Anyway, me and my buddies, Brett and Steve ended up doing weekly rehearsals and camera blockings for indelible and affable hosts like Parry Sound’s own Don Harron. One particularly immemorable game show “Anything You Can Do...” pitted a team of three women against three guys in a series of competitive stunts and goofs run against the clock. We men always lost. Possibly because I am a fat guy. Or, because we usually performed in an altered state of unconsciousness. Anyway, I did manage to graduate into feature films and eventually took the vow of poverty to enter the documentary monastery.

But you know as a factual filmmaker, I still find I am doing game shows. Only this time they are called ‘pitches.’ Now I am not talking cricket fields here, I’m talking about the encapsulated public presentation of a story idea or film project before a group of commissioning editors, funders and peers which may result, or not, in determining what documentary will be consuming the next two years of one’s life.

The classic concept of the pitch comes out of that brilliant scene with Tim Robbins in the opening scenes of Robert Altman’s The Player. It’s where either creative life or an ignoble death can hang on how well you can articulate and compress three years of development research into twenty-five words... or less. Where all one’s passion for a project must be conveyed in one sentence, packaged in a high concept synthetic allusion to other familiar work and delivered with as much spark and aplomb and heart as you can muster, or fake, or “Gong! your bell has rung, Mr. Wintonick.” and you are outta there. “Next, please. Thank you very much ....”

I am not here going to address the private one-on-one pitches here, those done in person or from afar by electronic means, proposals, random talk and chat, schmoozing in fiestas, chance meetings and brainstorms and harassment that we all must do to make a living. I want to limit consideration to what we’ll call the Public Pitch.

For as far back as I can remember, different markets and festivals and industry meetings have organized collective meetings where a group of producers, filmmakers and TV commissioners present proposals for new work before a gang, a jury or executioner’s mob of other commissioners, enlightened foundations, and agencies. For some filmmakers it is not a question of peer to peer, but us against them. However, thinking more positively, some of these forums have developed into a virtual agora of potential ideas and (promises of) money. Something good arises in the gestalt of all these forces.

There are many incarnations to the Public pitch. There are now more than 3,000 film festivals and markets around the world. A Google web-search alone on Documentary festivals would fill up your hard drive. I would argue that most public pitches have taken their form and format from the television they so greatly desire to emulate. There are pitches in the form of Game shows and beauty contests, where a lot of money and fame can be won. There are pitches which are dating games and one-on-ones. Pin the tale on the Donkey, spin the bottle and musical (commissioner’s) chairs. There is pitching as personals column matchmaking affairs. There are public pitches in the form of talk shows and lotteries where chances are taken with no money down. There is pitching as sports event, soap opera and comic opera. Almost all can be real tragedies, if you haven’t prepared or performed well.

Generally, there are two typologies. Either you have the pitchers standing up in front of a group of creative money people, trying desperately not to be nervous, looking sleep-deprived and over-anxious. Or you have a group of money people sitting on stage. They, too, are somewhat nervous, sleep-deprived and anxious. The pitcher-beggar, cap in hand, stands among his or her colleagues in the voyeur audience, hoping to cop a plea bargain. There are few variants, sometimes different premiums and prizes, different levels of pre-selection and filtering to get the right to pitch, but generally it really comes down to a simple formula: Try to convey, in too short a time, with all the passion and clarity you can find in you cafe saturated soul, a story idea for an ephemeral dream in front of a group who may mean you no harm, and wish you all the best, and who also want to get as much as they can out of the experience. And ALL of this must be performed in public on a public stage in front of your peers, in an open-veined way. And they, in the end, are your worst, and best audience. Because everyone’s been through it before.

Over the last decade, I have been fortunate enough to see many pitches in action. From internationally renowned Banff to Bombay. From Marseilles to Montreal. From one of the best run pitch in the world at IDFA’s Forum in Amsterdam and North America’s pre-eminent Toronto Documentary Forum at Hot Docs in Canada to the equally effective personal match-making for fictionados at Rotterdam. From regional participation at the Galway Film Fleagh, to Thessaloniki’s Southern European Documart run by the EDN to Docs in Europe Bardonecchia to South Africa’s Encounters Pitches to the “high, no worries” tightrope acts at Australia’s International Documentary Conference, I’ve been involved in simulated pitches and watched pitchers pitch potential pitchees on the fine art of pitching in workshops organized by National Screen Institutes and Screen Training Workshops.

Pat Ferns who once ran the Banff Television Festival, may be the Great Uncle of All Public Pitches. For almost two decades he has been roaming the world, like a, gentle, funny caring carney busker, matching marks with their makers. Like an auctioneer, Pat probably could take out a patent on his brand of pitching.

Everyone has his or her different metaphor for the pitch. For some, it is a circus: filmmakers and producers are the trained seals and unfriendly lions jumping through hoops of fire. For some, it is an act humiliation in a bondage bar. For some, an Olympian challenge with its unjust rewards.

I must admit I did hold a certain amount of angst and antipathy toward the whole process and much criticism has been leveled, in these pages and others about the problems about the whole concept of public pitching. There is an inordinate amount of bitching about pitching. Being a Gemini, I am of two mixed minds about this pitching thing. For many years, I refused to participate in the public pitch. It’s not that I don’t like to perform in public. I’ve always been a bit of a vegetarian ham since I was my high school’s valedictorian. But in fact, I am a little shy. Some pitchers have been known to take over the counter performance enhancing beta blockers just to get up enough courage to perform in front of the crowd. Others have come off stage to literally cry on my shoulder, or churn their stomachs inside out, thinking they have failed. I’ve always found other ways to get my films programmed, by pitching in private or otherwise coercing commissioners into believing that my idea is their idea, that my passion and commitment and skill and experience will be good for us all... I’ve always relied on soft-peddling my ‘vapour’ wares, by meeting commissioners informally in the opportunities that surround the public pitches. Sometimes one feels a bit like a puppy or piranha looking for scraps. Yes, you can access the necessary people at the schmooze fests and parties, although I make it a policy not to bother people with pitches when we just want to drink. In fact, I would rather talk about life or trivial philosophy and send my well designed pitches in the mail. If pitching is a seductive dance then I have to admit that I am not great at seduction. Although I do like romantic Facebook walks in the sunset, quite times, cinema and music, and I am 6 foot, a little generous nice guy size, blue is my favorite colour ......

I did get to pitch at Hot Docs, with co-director Katerina Cizek and CBC-Newsworld commissioning editor Catherine Olsen our just finished film SEEING is BELIEVING, and I must admit that I really learned from the experience. First of all, it made us prepare. We had to cut a sample trailer together, which is something I highly recommend. Catherine made us rehearse, distill, and promise to keep within out allotted time. However, I have to admit I blew it. Instead of keeping to the prepared ‘script’ in my improv way I started making (somewhat appreciated) jokes and then riffed on my attitude to pitching which was to say, I felt like a helpless, defenseless pacifist gladiator without a shield. Looking around the large table at the three dozen commissioners and the rabble of my peers hanging out of the ‘gods’ in the balcony, I felt naked by the Emperor was wearing very nice clothes and was going to come down out of nowhere and the Voice of God would strike me down.... Katerina and I were struck down, but this time it was chairwoman’s gavel and our seven and a half minutes were up, thank you very much. We did get a chance to recover some points in the Q and A inquisition which followed, and we did get out of there with our skins and a few pre-sales, which is what it is all about. I would do it again.

I’ve also had to be on the other side, on both sides now, to quote Joni Mitchell. I’ve been on several international juries, worked as a pitch coach and trainer in Italy, Cape Town and Greece, and also worked as a ‘commissioner’ being pitched at in Cyber pitches at Hot Docs. So, I’ve developed a great appreciation for what commissioning editors have to live through: reading massive tomes, negotiating with their managers how much money they can bring to the table, whom to favour, whom to take a chance on, what to argue for, when to stay silent. How to make the process work consensually in everyone’s favour. I have also watched with sympathetic horror, as more established and visible commissioners must literally beat off the attacking dogs of filmmakers as they become surrounded at cocktail parties. I watched one illustrious TV executive negotiate with his Blackberry, his Cellular phone, a filmmaker, the filmmaker’s ‘agent’ and a drink all at the same time in a noisy, smoking crowded room. He looked a bit like a multi-armed Hindu Goddess. The God of Multi-tasking. From the balcony at a recent Sheffield Festival party, I was able to pick out who all the British Commissioning editors were. They were the ones surrounded by circles pleading pitchers on the dance floor below.

There is nothing like the empathic feeling engendered by walking in another persons shoes to give one sympathy for the devil, so to speak. In my theory producing documentary means descending through the seven levels of Dante’s Hell. In other words, the 7 levels and layers of commissioning processes, broadcaster and funding agency deals, tax credit schemes and TV support triggers and a whole series of steps of which the whole public pitching process is but one stage. Now, we all know how hard it is to get a group of 7 people in a circle to agree to which restaurant they all should go to, or which after-hours bar, let alone to get them all lined up positively behind your little crazy dream. It’s a wonder that we actually get them made at all.

I will try to synthesize the general feelings many have had about pitching. The standard view is that sometimes the greatest filmmaker, or even proposal writer and producer is not necessarily the best presentor of the work in a public pitch. There is this performative aspect to it. Some filmmakers and producers lack the charisma, social skills or vaudevillian qualities necessary to wow the money people even it they are incredibly visual, cinematic or documentary artists. They just maybe shy. You don’t need to be a good story-teller to be a great-storyteller. Or to script life in some preordained fashion. Analyses that are more negative would posit that Public pitch spectacles are only ways to enable festivals and markets to attract Television broadcast and agency sponsorship to the festivals themselves. The industrial and marketing imperatives make the provision of a venue and visibility for showcasing the corporate profile needs of competing broadcaster brands. Even deeper felt is the feeling that, in effect, it is filmmakers and their ideas that are getting exploited in the process. Pitch Markets, Fora and Festivals sometimes subsidize the appearance of those being pitched at, but make pitchers pay significant sums for the right to pitch. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars to prepare properly for a pitch. In essence the argument goes: producers give broadcasters access to a whole array of story ideas from which they may pick and choose at their whim, but ironically, they make us pay for our own misery. In reality it is we pitchers who subsidize them, they don’t pay us; we deliver skill, competitive fire and passion.... they deliver........money. Er,...... well, ....yes, yes, yes, they do give us money, that’s true.... and sometimes commissioning editors even have something brilliant to say... and can change our minds and projects for the better.

The cynical will claim that in public pitches filmmakers are selling cheap access to stories and unique characters. Or long-term research for process films which might have taken years of unpaid labour to develop. Or, in the case of those systems which limit pitches to first time filmmakers, broadcasters are provided cheap fodder for their innumerable broadcast slots and grids, cheap programs acquired by preying upon the desire of younger more inexperienced emerging talent. Others complain that there is too much emphasis on television and too little on what makes a great documentary. Sometimes its too hard to decipher what television want... one moment is quirky, the next moment its story, the next its character-driven, the next its one-offs, the next its series. Others complain that both producers and commissioners promise more than they can deliver. In the heat of the ebb and flow of two or three days of some public pitching sessions, some broadcasters say yes to too many projects and over-subscribe. It would be interesting to follow through and look objectively at the success rate of those projects that appear to be successful at public pitches but we will leave it for others to study.

Others suggest that public pitching forces people to perform roles which may not be accustomed, or forces commissioners to take on expected persona which give Jungian archetypes and comedia del arte their stereotypical definitions. At every pitch someone always plays the erudite, the sardonic, the resistant, the comic, the obstructionist. And those roles change and exchange from season to season, depending on who’s who in the pecking order.

But irregardless of the critique, there really are as many arguments in favour of public pitches as against them. I will go through a few obvious ones here. On the most basic level, Public Pitches enable millions of dollars worth of essential, sometimes difficult documentaries to get made. It’s also an incredible opportunity for self-reflective critique and evaluation, eliciting valuable market-driven feedback. On a practical level, they are important because people can actually physically identify each other in the arena. “Oh, that’s what she looks like..... “ In the revolving doors of our industry, where the average shelf life of a commissioner or a producer matches that of fresh milk, this is valuable. Pitches also tend to label, brand and identify you with a certain project, and that subject area becomes your domain for the next year or so. You are given a certain grace period to get your act together to make the film. If you don’t, then the idea reverts to the general gene pool. Public pitches are increasingly valuable for commissioners who may take the opportunity to make inter-broadcaster co-pro deals and strategic alliances which will also be trickledown useful to the average producer. After all, someone has to make those films. And in the end, it all comes down to that. Over the last two decades there have been hundreds of great documentaries which have successfully been pitched publicly, or given the push and visibility, at a crucial time, which allowed them to move forward.

So, sure, there are some serious problems which will need to addressed. It is my proposition that the systems of public pitching which have developed are in need of a makeover. Another kind of game show. I hear this from all sides, from organizers and commissioners and producers. I think the wheel must be reinvented – it could be re-balanced. To keep them fresh and new and entertaining and utilitarian, and to address the changing needs of producers, filmmakers, sponsors, the public, agencies, foundations and commissioners in the decade to come.

And of course to take advantage of new technological advances in the networked world. Our goal, in fact should be to re-invent media, to re-invent public pitching, to reinvent television, and the documentary form itself.

Here are some of my simple recommendations for Existing Pitch Systems
as we await a new system.

RECCOMENDATIONS,

For the moment, let’s assume we are all adults and we all know what a good story is, and have enough skill to pull it off. After all, my teenage daughter Mira is teaching me how to use Final Cut Pro software, and she and her friends have been making films as part of their everyday lives as a matter of course. They all watch enough media to know what’s good and how to make it. Shouldn’t we? And let’s assume we all know each other, so can go directly to stage two of the dating game.

1) pitches should be grouped together according to genres. And space should be left for those which transcend boundaries.
2) we should slow down the intense velocity of public pitches, be given more time for the pitches, and more time between pitches
3) there should be more small scale public pitching opportunities, more often, in more places. Not necessarily formal, but opportunities for feedback at various stages of a project’s life in many regional venues.
4) fear and nervousness should be banished from the pitching ring. Consensual and symbiotic empathy serves us all better.
5) there should be more one on one opportunities
6) pitchers should be subsidized to travel and to produce the required materials to make their pitches. All registration fees should be banished.
7) new technological ways of long-distance meetings should be tried. Videophones, the internet. We are communications specialists, after all.
8) without wanting to micromanage, pitch sessions could be re-designed to unroll in incremental stages. The first day of a session could involve public pitches as we know them, the second day could involve big round the room all party debates in the style of INPUT, on directions, issues and futures which are important to television and documentary. A third day could be devoted to a one on ones, with a plenary session to wrap it up.
9) all proposals entered to compete for pitching slots should be accepted, although not necessarily pitched. A database of those projects could be made available for commissioners to access, there could be matches made in heaven without the need to perform
10) all public pitches should be de-fanged of negative and injurious competition. Healthy competition is not the survival of the fittest.
11) compulsory licenses should be issued, or commissioners should bring money to the table for at least one project. Guaranteed development money, prototyping and followup feedback should be build into the system

(Some of this article PITCH POSITIVE appeared in POV, the Canadian documentary film magazine, for which Peter Wintonick is the international editor)