What every good pitch needs:

•  A Phenomenal Hook. Whether the IP is gritty true crime, sappy schmaltz, or anything in between, it has to be presented grippingly. The first page of your pitch deck, your cold email tagline, the opening sentence of your pitch in the room, and the first moment of your pilot episode are all first impressions, and you never get a second chance at them. How you approach your hook will set the tone for your entire outreach process, both in the room and beyond.

• A Compelling “Why Now?”. What makes this particular project vital to streaming platforms at this moment in time? Where is the gap in the market for it? The coinciding current event that makes this IP hot? What is trending out in the ether that will make people click this icon on their Netflix landing page? A powerful “Why Now?” has viral potential written all over it and executives will be seeing dollar signs.

• Structures that Flow. In both the concept AND in the pitch itself. If investors don’t understand that YOU inherently understand storytelling at first glance, their attention won’t hold. This requires a careful and calculated zooming out. What is the act structure? How about your segment, episode, or season structure? Why are you telling this story and why have you chosen this particular format to do it?

• Character. No matter the subject, we need to feel its soul. Even if you’re doing a profile on a rare type of jellyfish—if we don’t understand that jellyfish’s essential character beats (we need to feel him yearning for that phytoplankton), your pitch won’t go swimmingly (thank you, I’ll be here all week). Anything can be a character: a person, a place, an idea. Just give it a heart, because good storytelling always touches that place.

• Understanding your Home. It’s all good if you want to do what’s never been done before, but if buyers don’t get why your project is a perfect fit for their platform, they might not see yours as commercially viable. Understanding and conveying the parameters of your project in terms of what already lives out there will set you up for success. What are your comps/genre? What company needs something like this? How is your project “the same, but different”? What specific people and platform will help this piece of IP blossom into an abundant franchise?

• Positioning Yourself as a Leader. Who are you in relation to this project and why are you the best possible choice to be trusted with their money? How will your project make them more money? Having highly proactive answers to the tough questions that will arise in the room will position you as the seasoned industry vet they’d love to work with.

• Consistent and Punchy Visuals. Your deck and your sizzle should be telling the same visual story. Why use random stock images when you have real production stills? Nothing says “I don’t know my project” like a pitch deck that is visually worlds away from your footage. Your sizzle should be a mini-film and your deck should be a storybook, both with the same tonal flow and visual identifiers. A consistent color palate and font family doesn’t hurt either.