Has this every happened to anyone? Maybe it's not as weird as I think.
A mutual friend sets up a pitch meeting for me with a wealthy guy who finances movies. He recently funded a film starring several well-known actors that did reasonably well.
The meeting itself is odd. The guy picks me up in his extremely expensive car on a street corner, which reeks of cigarettes. I used to smoke and don't mind the smell, but the guy chainsmokes to such an extent that by the end of our 30-minute meeting, I'm starting to get a headache.
We drive around while I pitch him a few ideas. He tells me that he doesn't read scripts and I should condense the two ideas that he likes into short PPT documents. Fine. I can do that.
Spend a couple of days working on them. They're good. One idea is commercially viable, but is based on a book that would have to be optioned. The other is an urbane comedy in the Noah Baumbach mode. My guess is that he'll be interested in the former and pass on the latter, but so be it. There's no script for the first project, but one for the second. The film financier told me that the guy on his payroll who reads stuff will check out the script. If he likes it, the film financier himself will read it.
Within a day of sending off the PPT files, I get a response. It's a pass on both. Again, no biggie - I can deal with rejection. It's in my blood at this point.
The weird thing is that the film financier's guy who read the PPT material, whoever he is, gave a reason for passing on the comedy is that the script is 120 pages long. According to his feedback, this automatically means that the story is meandering and unfocused. But he also makes it clear that he hasn't read it and is basing everything on the PPT files.
Is this the norm? Again, it's fine. I'm just curious. I've never had any pitch meetings or feedback go like this before.
A mutual friend sets up a pitch meeting for me with a wealthy guy who finances movies. He recently funded a film starring several well-known actors that did reasonably well.
The meeting itself is odd. The guy picks me up in his extremely expensive car on a street corner, which reeks of cigarettes. I used to smoke and don't mind the smell, but the guy chainsmokes to such an extent that by the end of our 30-minute meeting, I'm starting to get a headache.
We drive around while I pitch him a few ideas. He tells me that he doesn't read scripts and I should condense the two ideas that he likes into short PPT documents. Fine. I can do that.
Spend a couple of days working on them. They're good. One idea is commercially viable, but is based on a book that would have to be optioned. The other is an urbane comedy in the Noah Baumbach mode. My guess is that he'll be interested in the former and pass on the latter, but so be it. There's no script for the first project, but one for the second. The film financier told me that the guy on his payroll who reads stuff will check out the script. If he likes it, the film financier himself will read it.
Within a day of sending off the PPT files, I get a response. It's a pass on both. Again, no biggie - I can deal with rejection. It's in my blood at this point.
The weird thing is that the film financier's guy who read the PPT material, whoever he is, gave a reason for passing on the comedy is that the script is 120 pages long. According to his feedback, this automatically means that the story is meandering and unfocused. But he also makes it clear that he hasn't read it and is basing everything on the PPT files.
Is this the norm? Again, it's fine. I'm just curious. I've never had any pitch meetings or feedback go like this before.
Comment