Martini Shot: Pitch Room Chit-Chat
theankler.com
Feb 1 • 11M
Martini Shot: Pitch Room Chit-Chat
Rob Long on the value of awkward, meandering, fake-jokey conversation
Appears in this episode
Rob Long
When you’re filming a movie or a television show, when it’s the last shot of the day, the first assistant director will call out, “This is the Martini Shot!” I call these stories “Martini Shots” because they’re exactly the kinds of stories we tell — and lessons we learn — after we’ve wrapped for the day. - Rob Long
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No matter how much power you have, you’re going to eventually sit in someone’s office and pitch something. It’s why Rob Long thinks everyone has to perfect at least 10 minutes of pre-meeting chit chat — those short but important conversations, usually between writers and execs, that take place prior to the official start of any pitch (weird traffic patterns, huh? Did you guys know each other in college?). Just don’t talk about scary spiders.
Martini Shot: Pitch Room Chit-Chat
Martini Shot is the most useful pod on my list. The real-world anecdotes illustrate the point(s) in an accessible way. I worked retail sales for a decade, and we were trained to get a conversation started by letting the customer start it. Granted this was a toy store where I wore an apron with all kinds of fun things to whip out, and play with, thus insuring the customer started talking first. But yeah, the best sales came after a five minute chit-chat about anything but the $300 to $500+ in big German trains the customer was about to buy.