Starting with the pitch
Hello!
I’m Hari Kanth, and this is my weekly newsletter about my adventures in trying to become a comedy writer-director.
Starting with the pitch
I made a mistake with the sitcom pilot I’m working on at the moment: I didn’t nail the pitch down before I started writing it. So even though I’m deep into the second draft, if someone asks me what the premise is, I can only vaguely answer that it’s like a south Asian Frasier:
Karthik’s dad moves in next door — conflict, culture clash and hijinks ensue.
To be honest, I don’t think it’s ever going to get to the point where it’s got a super intriguing pitch — which is a problem, because that’s the first thing most people will hear about it.
I’m going to stick with it for now, because: a. I think it still works as a writing sample that shows off my style; and b. I have a tendency to not finish projects, which I should probably fix.
(I’ve been working on sitcom pilots for several years now, and I still don’t have a polished sample that I’m happy to show people without adding qualifiers like “I know this needs work!” It turns out that the secret is to actually do that work until I can stop saying that…)
But now that I’m embracing the magic of quantity, I know it won’t be too long before I start my next project -- so for that, I’ll try starting with the pitch first.
Not only will that solve this problem, but it’ll let me test the idea on people before I start writing it, to gauge whether it’s actually worth spending time on. Plus: I've heard that a common question you get asked at interviews and general meetings is what else are you working on? — so it’ll be useful to have strong answers already prepared for all the ideas I’m developing.
How to Write a Pitch
So the next obvious question is: how do you actually write a pitch?
Luckily, I recently watched the incredible Netflix Pitch Workshop hosted by Stage 32. Although I’m a long way from pitching to Netflix, I thought the framework was really great — and a useful way to make sure I’ve figured out all the key elements of my show before I start typing script pages.
I’ll share my full notes as soon as I’ve finished writing them up — the whole thing was three hours long! — but for now, you can read my notes on the two most relevant sections here.
Three Things
Here are three things I’ve enjoyed this week:
Watching: WandaVision on Disney+. If you’re not familiar with it, the premise of this Marvel show is that Wanda and Vision are stuck in some kind of sitcom world that goes through the history of US television. As a sitcom fan, I was obviously completely sold by the idea (also neatly demonstrating the importance of solid pitches…) I didn’t think it quite nailed the sitcoms — although maybe that’s the point — but the mystery side of things gets very good from episode 4. (That said, I thought the Malcolm in the Middle episode was spot on.)
Reading: Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage and Screen by Chris Head. I really enjoyed Chris’s Writing Narrative Comedy courses last year, so I was excited to finally get my hands on the book version. (Especially since his first book helped me a lot with my last Fringe show.) I’ve only just started reading it, but I’ll let you know what I think…
Learning: @tonytost on Twitter. It’s been nice diving into Screenwriting Twitter over the last few months — it’s one of the more pleasant aspects of the platform. I don’t know Tony personally, but he’s written some really great threads recently, including the importance of the first few pages of a script, and general script principles. He's definitely worth a follow.
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Until next time,
Hari.