600 Pitches a Year!

I was talking to a former streaming executive recently who shared something that stuck with me - in a typical year, they would see around 600 pitches. That's not a typo. Six hundred different projects, all competing for attention, all trying to be the next big thing. From seasoned veterans to first time producers.

Think about that for a second. If you're an executive looking at two pitches per working day, how much time do you think they're really spending with each one? This is why that first page matters so much. Just like we always hear that the first 10 pages of your screenplay are the most important, the first page of your pitch deck can make or break your project's chances.

Why Executives Say No (And How to Get Them to Say Yes)

Here's something we all need to understand - executives don't take risks. Not because they don't want to, but because they don't want to lose their jobs. Every "no" is safer than a "yes" that flops. Your job is to make saying "yes" feel like the safest choice they could make.

But here's the reality that everyone in Hollywood(it’s not just Hollywood but everywhere) knows but nobody likes to admit: No one knows anything. Really. No one knows what projects will work and what won't. Just look at the track record. How many "guaranteed hits" have flopped spectacularly? How many tiny indie projects with no-name casts have become critical darlings and box office successes?

Take Stranger Things for example. Would you believe it was turned down nearly two dozen times before finding its home? Most executives thought it would be a flop. They told the Duffer Brothers that a supernatural show with kids as the main characters wouldn't work unless they turned it into a children's show. Now it's one of Netflix's biggest hits ever.

The Cover Page is the Poster that Lures You In

Your pitch deck's cover page is like a movie poster - it needs to pull people in. That is the first thing anyone sees. Just like a movie poster, when someone sees it, they need to be intrigued to learn more.

That’s what I love about the cover image of the Stranger Things pitch (when it was called Montauk), it makes you feel like this is already a story, now it just needs to come to a screen. The tattered look says we found a book from the 80’s no one has ever heard of and we are going to let you in on this amazing piece of property.

The First Page is Everything

Your pitch deck's cover page is like a movie poster - it needs to pull people in. But it's that next page, the one that follows the cover, that matters most. This is where you need to tell executives everything they need to know about your project.

Forget what you've heard about just needing a killer logline or a tight synopsis on that first page. Those matter, but that first real page needs to do so much more. It needs to:

• Interweave your logline with your synopsis

• Establish your genre and tone

• Clarify the format (series or film) and running time

• Give a feel for the world you're creating

Think about it like the introduction to a great book. When you read a strong introduction, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, you get a complete understanding of what's about to unfold over the next few hundred pages. In just those first couple of pages, you can feel what the book is going to be about.

That word - FEEL - that's crucial. Emotion is what people buy. When an executive connects emotionally with your project in that first page, they're more likely to keep reading, more likely to remember your pitch, and more likely to champion your project.

Making Your First Page Count

Here's how to make that first page work harder:

1. Start with a strong hook that captures the essence of your project

2. Blend your logline naturally into a compelling synopsis

3. Include practical details that show you understand the market

4. Create an emotional connection to your story world

5. Show what makes your project unique without having to say it's unique

Remember, this page isn't just about information, it's about translation. You're translating your passion and vision into something tangible that executives can see, feel, and most importantly, sell to others.

The Setup

Now that you have brought them in with a broad understanding of the overall project, give the reader the main setup. The main chain of events that set the story in motion. It doesn’t have to be the chain of events that happen in the pilot, it can be something that is discovered later on in the series, but its the main action that sets up the whole reason for the first season.

The Story

Now we have our poster, we have our introduction, we have our setup, then we dive into the overall story. At this point you have primed the reader so that when they get to the story, that can really SEE it and FEEL it. You can think of this as the synopsis for the whole series.

The Structure

Even though your reader may already know you are planning to do 12 episodes by 30 minutes or 8 episodes by 1 hour, it’s still important to lay out the structure. Will each episode stand alone with minimal interconnectivity like Law & Order, will each episode connect immensely with the next like Breaking Bad or will there be a balance of interconnectivity but also stand alone like The X-Files , a show that you could watch an episode on its own and enjoy it, but there is also a through line if you want to be part of the full inter-connected story.

The Tone & Style

This can break down the look, the pace of the show, the emotional feelings the audience will get. Also visual references can be used here to get the idea across. One of the very smart things about the Stranger Things pitch is that the whole pitch book is the tone & style, so on this page they have no need to show any images.

You can download the full pitch book to see the image references in between the text pages.

The Characters

And now we are finally into our characters. WHOA! After SIX pages we have made it to our characters! BUT WHY SO LATE! Because the tone, feeling, and emotion has already been established, so by the time you get to the characters you are able to relate to them. That is the KEY. Even in a show, that’s what lures us in and keeps us staying, its not the story as much as it is the characters that we can connect too. At this point in the pitch book we have given you a reason to care about who the characters are. If you introduce them early (like many pitch’s do) we don’t really care about them because we don’t understand the story or concept or feeling of the show yet.

The selling point

There is a whole lot of data out there and if you can come with some audience data to backup why this project would succeed, then you have not only pitched them the show but ALSO done some work for them and helped to pinpoint the demographic that would watch the show. I don’t mean audiences that are male and female 18-35 year old. That doesn’t say anything, yes that could be your demographic but it’s so broad and it is what everyone says. Instead you should focus on a specific type of audience, maybe they are fans of 80’s horror and sci-fi films.

If you can find data or graphs, then that’s even better. I like to pull from the hundreds of graphs found in The Horror Movie Report. Even if it’s just one or two graphs it shows that you are thinking about the audience and marketability of your own show - your doing a little more work FOR the executive and giving them just one more reason to say YES.

The Bottom Line

In this business, you never know what's going to work. But you do know that without a strong pitch deck, even the best ideas can get lost in that pile of 600 projects. Make that first page count. Make it impossible for them to say no. Make them feel something.

Because at the end of the day, that's what this business is really about, making people feel something. Start with that first page of your pitch deck, and make them feel it right from the beginning.

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