Art of the Virtual Pitch: Buyer, Seller Secrets for Nailing It in the Zoom Room
Writer despair as execs 'toggle to other screens' and bigwigs score IRL sit-downs
Elaine Low reports on the TV business from L.A. She recently wrote about entertainment industry workers who’ve decided to leave L.A. in the wake of January’s wildfires, the #StayinLA campaign to keep production in SoCal, and the emerging indie TV model.
Happy Presidents Day, Series Business fam. And shoutout to the Ankler readers and pod listeners who came over to say hello after the panel I moderated at the Cramer Comedy Newsletter’s State of Comedy event at Dynasty Typewriter yesterday here in L.A. So many Laddies at The Ladder-sponsored afterparty! The Ladder is The Ankler’s program for people in the first decade of their entertainment career, so send those sharp industry newbies you know here to apply. (And while you’re at it, make your picks here for The Ankler’s first-ever Prestige Junkie Oscar pool.)
Speaking of building a career in Hollywood, where were you five years ago? How did you feel about your working life in early 2020, and is it what you thought it would be in 2025? I ask because that’s how long it’s been — nearly half a decade!! — since the start of the pandemic. And as that March milestone approaches, I’ve been reflecting on how Covid is still reverberating in Hollywood. Prodded by the kinds of technological advancements that have always forced entertainment media to evolve, the once-in-a-lifetime health crisis drove changes in consumer habits, distribution, dealmaking and myriad other arenas of show business.
Just look at this moviegoing chart from the Wall Street Journal and the total flip in habits: Even in February of last year, 65 percent of Americans said they would rather watch a movie from home than in theaters. (You can argue that this disruption had already begun, but the pandemic no doubt accelerated it.)
There was, for a time, a sense that many of these shifts in behavior would be temporary. Now we know that quite a few of them are not. We’re going to unpack the most significant changes over the course of the next month or so — what they mean for the future of work and the future of this industry — but for now let’s take a microscope to one part of the business that has completely transformed and not looked back: the pitch meeting.
In the Before Times, writers and producers would criss-cross town, driving to Burbank or Culver City or Hollywood or Santa Monica, to make sweaty-palmed pitches for new TV series in front of suit-clad buyers at networks and streaming platforms. These were almost exclusively in-person meetings before Covid. Now, an IRL gathering is an anomaly.
Judalina Neira, executive producer of Prime Video’s The Boys, says she’s made at least 40 pitches over the last five years, and “I haven’t had a single in-person pitch since the pandemic.”
The same goes for all the other writers, agents and studio execs I spoke to. There are the obvious pitfalls of pitching by Zoom. Like all functions that have been flattened out by screens, the virtual meeting loses some of the flavor and fun of the original in this attention economy.
“I’m constantly getting complaints from all my clients where they can see the executive texting on the other end, or not staring at the computer screen and doing something else,” says one agent who reps writers.
But the upsides of virtual pitches — and even the purists concede there are significant ones — might surprise you.
In this week’s Series Business, let’s look at:
The new skills writers need to break through in a virtual pitch
Advice from a cable buyer turned seller about how to hold everyone’s attention in a Zoom meeting
Which kind of show is the hardest to pitch virtually
How the tools of a Zoom room can both support and undermine creative ideation — and workarounds from veterans to make the most of the tech
What it takes to get buyers into an in-person meeting
How to “eventize” in-person pitches when they happen
An agent’s tips for making your pitch “undeniable”
Bright spots from one buyer about how to make a memorable pitch