Tweetstorm: Selwyn Seyfu Hinds on Developing and Delivering a Pitch

“You’re ready to pitch when you find the emotional center of the story & your connection to it. The story has to turn emotional gears in you. When they turn in you they’re gonna turn in your listener.”

Twitter can be a gold mine for writers. Case in point, when pro writers generate a tweetstorm about the craft. A few days ago, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds put together an informative series of tweets based on his most recent experience pitching a project to several potential Hollywood buyers. Reprinted here by permission.

1/24 — So if you been following me you know I took big feature pitch out last week. And I promised to do a thread on my thoughts as relates to pitching a feature. This isn’t a “how to do it,” this is “how Selwyn does it.” #screenwriting

2/24 — Some folks aren’t fond of pitching. Some are terrified of it. Regardless, it’s a huge part of what we do so you gotta get good at it, and continue to work on it, same you work on mastering your craft on the page.

3/24 — Hopefully there’s something useful for you in here. This stuff has all been part of my process. And while I haven’t landed every assignment I’ve pitched a take for, I’ve probably sold 90% of the projects I’ve developed and taken out to pitch.

4/24 — This latest project came my way months ago. It took a while to develop the pitch. Both because my showrunner day job on Wash Black is a kinda hectic, and because this was a tough movie to get my arms around. It wasn’t gonna be ready until I found the emotional center.

5/24 — That’s my first tidbit. You’re ready to pitch when you find the emotional center of the story& your connection to it. The story has to turn emotional gears in you. When they turn in you they’re gonna turn in your listener. Embrace being vulnerable and you’ll pull ’em in

6/24 — So we’re ready to pitch, let’s set meetings. I think of meetings in 3 tiers. First, the warm ups. A good room for you to get comfortable. Maybe execs you already know. Buyers who you, your reps and producers don’t think might be at the front of the line to buy the pitch

7/24 — Middle tier, the folks you think will buy. After your warm up pitches you’re gonna smash these. Then round it out with a final tier. Often buyers who asked to hear late. A lot of times word about a pitch gets around and folks wanna hear cuz everyone in Hollywood has FOMO

8/24 — Good reps help stoke the anticipation. Think, Bad Boy party in the 90s. We throwing the hit event that no one wants to miss. The ability and connections to really prime the pump for your pitch before you go out is one of the attributes you want from your feature agents.

9/24 — Tweak your pitch between meetings. Pay attention to what’s landing in the room. Ask your producers to pay attention as well. Smart execs will ask you questions after a pitch that will also make you tweak and refine things. Your pitch is a living document. Let it evolve.

10/24 — A thought for those who write TV and features (or want to), cuz this one hit me this time out. In pitching a TV series we get great mileage from digging super deep into character, the world, and the engine that’s driving things along …

11/24 — Hopping back over to features will require a bit more granularity on story and structure. It’s really the difference between the closed loop journey and a broader exploration where, even if we know the eventual destination, that ending is a ways off.

12/24 — Not gonna spend a bunch of time on the composition of a feature pitch, cuz we touched on the most important piece for me (emotion). In the most basic form, my feature pitches begin with a prologue that centers my connection, then lays out the world, stakes, characters…

13/24 — …and structural approach. That’s the first half. Second half of the pitch plunges into the film, act by act, as I tell the tale. I call it being macro with intention: we’re just using key beats, high points for emotion, story and character as we move through the pitch

14/24 — I do wanna spend time on the “pitching” part of a feature pitch. So, few years back I wrote a Joker stand-alone script for Jared Leto. After I was done pitching him and the DC folks to get the job, Jared, who’d been grinning throughout, asked if I’d had actor training…

15/24 — Nah. I just love telling stories on some “once upon a time” vibe. Like when my daughter was little, I had to keep her riveted when reading a book. I think of that. So my pitches are full of inflections, dramatic pauses and mood and emotional swings. Campfire tales shit

16/24 — Audio/visual assets help me. When we sold Prince of Cats to Legendary I used a hip-hop score and when the right beat dropped — conference room turned into club. I’d hop up, stalk back and forth, pitching what the characters FELT as a Mobb Deep beat rocked. (Emotion!!!)

17/24 — When we sold Washington Black that was dominated by big and beautiful imagery: props, locales, potential actors. Making the experience more immersive. Hard to do all this on Zoom these days, so on this last pitch we played a dope sizzle that set the tone before I pitched

18/24 — Another tool I used a lot in the “real world” that works on Zoom: I pull people into the pitch. “I know you been waiting for this part, Jan.. What would you do in that situation, John?” I mean, not that lame, but you get what I’m saying. Make them part of the experience

19/24 — So you’re an introverted writer. Where are you gonna get the confidence to do all this? If talking to a group of people staring at you is terrifying, you gotta figure out how to flip that. Public speaking course. Acting class. One of my faves is just pitching…

20/24 …to yourself in the mirror, cuz looking at yourself for long is weird. It’ll force you to get comfortable. Mostly, relax. You’re telling a tale to the homies, not an oral PHD defense. Have fun. Laugh. I’m serious. Laughter warms every room up, makes folks comfortable

21/24 — Please, please take care of your throat/voice as much as you do your laptop. For me that means vocal warmups. Tea. Spoonfuls of honey between multiple pitches. Water. Lozenges. Throat spray. I do a lot cuz I get hoarse without tons of pre and post pitch work on my throat

22/24 — So you finished your pitch, what now? You’re excited, tired, and anxious as hell. First off, congratulate yourself. And then let it go. Emotionally that is. You left it all on the court and it is out of your hands…

23/24 — The good news, even if it doesn’t sell (which is the most likely fate of a pitch), you’ll have been exposed to a bunch of buyers and execs who will no doubt be impressed with your brilliance. You got some new fans and that’s real currency in this town.

24/24 — Oh this is long! Ok thx for hanging out! : ) Hope something in here proves valuable to ya. I’ll check back in, hopefully soon, to tell you the final fate of my recent pitch and to reveal the identity of this very cool movie. Best of luck on your writing/pitching journey.

While the whole thread is excellent, a couple of points particularly resonated with me:

• The story has to turn emotional gears in you. If you don’t have an emotional connection to the story, it’s hard to imagine delivering a pitch which generates an emotional response from the buyer.
• Tweak your pitch between meetings. Pay attention to what’s landing in the room. Don’t lock down your pitch to some sort of rote, memorized recitation. Be mindful of how it plays in the room — what works, what doesn’t work — then adjust the pitch accordingly.
• I call it being macro with intention: we’re just using key beats, high points for emotion, story and character as we move through the pitch. This echoes almost precisely what I tell Black List Feature Writer Lab participants. Each lab, I go through a pitching presentation, and this may be the biggest takeaway: Don’t do a beat-by-beat version of Act Two, rather focus on major plotline points, shifting from one subplot to the other, and always leaning into moments which elicit emotion.
• Mostly, relax. You’re telling a tale to the homies, not an oral PHD defense. Have fun. Laugh. In an ideal world, your pitch will turn into a kind of conversation where you lay out some of the story, the buyer engages you with some thoughts and ideas, you respond, then more story, and so on. The more casual, the better.

Honestly, the whole thread is worth printing out and keeping in your files. And Selwyn, I hope the good karma you generated from this Twitter thread helps put some wind in the sails of this particular pitch project!

Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is a producer and writer, known for Washington Black, The Twilight Zone (2019) and Prince of Cats.

Twitter: @selwynhinds.

For more screenwriter tweetstorms, go here.