Transcript: A Priest Walks into a Pitch Meeting...
What happens when God meets Hollywood? Rob Long tempts fate
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler.
Two writers I know went out with a great pitch recently. And I know it was great because I heard the pitch. Writers do that for each other now and then, so when they asked I was happy to get on Zoom and hear their great idea for a comedy series, and of course I had a couple of suggestions, not because they needed them but because if the series goes I want them to feel like they owe me. That’s what’s friends are for.
The first place they went to pitch the idea responded by saying some classic “we’re passing” language — loved the material and the auspices, not engaging in this area right now — but added something that I kind of anticipated, but didn’t share with my friends because it wasn’t something they could really fix anyway.
“The story and the arena,” said one of the non-buyers, “didn’t feel personal to the writers.” That’s an important thing, these days — well, it was always important, to be honest. Whenever I pitch something, I usually come up with a compelling-sounding lie about how the thing I’m about to pitch — the story, the characters, the whatever — is something that’s personal and deeply connected to my own experience, blah blah blah, because I know that when people hear something that they think is true and rooted, they are more likely to pay for it.
The story and the arena wasn’t personal to them, but it’s still a great idea and would be a terrific show, so in retrospect they should have come up with a convincing and totally false backstory just to help the idea go from the pitch meeting to the crucial business affairs calls your agent phase.
But I told you that to tell you this, which I’ve sort of alluded to for a while but it’s something that’s going on in my life that may or may not eventually be a script, and if it does, I won’t have to lie about it.
Last autumn, I did a very odd thing for a man of my age. I went back to school.