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PITCHING A CARTOON SHOW

By John Fountain

Let’s talk about pitching a cartoon show, shall we?

CHAPTER 3: NOW what?!

Good lord - after ALL THAT you’re still here?!

You’re a glutton for punishment, huh? Well… good… because if you’re going to pitch your cartoon ideas, you’ve gotta love getting punched in the gut.

And get punched in the gut you most certainly WILL!

Unless you’re one of those assholes who just comes up with something exceedingly brilliant and gets a fantastic development deal your first time around. In which case, the rest of us will sit here smiling and trying to make our “congratulations” seem sincere.

But I digress.

Before you go hunting down a place to pitch your idea, you should have your show at least moderately “figured out.”
You don’t have to write ‘The Silmarillion’ for it, but you don’t want to be sitting across from someone and suddenly face a question you can’t answer.

We will have a chapter on how to scope out places to pitch and how to best approach them and get that all-important pitch meeting, but first we want to make sure you’ve got your proverbial shit together.

Time to put together what I call a “Pitch Document.”

A Pitch Document is an abbreviated version of what most people call a “Show Bible” - a ‘book’ (not really book-sized) outlining the details of your show.

This is just MY opinion, but you don’t want to go into a pitch with a full-fledged bible and fully animated 22 minute pilot.

Ya just don’t.

This may sound controversial because many folks will tell you that the closer you walk in with something that looks “ready to go” the better your chances will be. And maybe that’s true...

But in MY experience, no matter how great your idea is, if you go in with everything “finished” then the executives are made to feel as though there’s absolutely no ‘wiggle room’ on your concept.

And maybe there isn’t...

If you’re one of those “NEVER COMPROMISE!” types, then by all means, go that extra mile. But understand this: MOST networks/media will want SOME things to change - and if it looks like your stuff is already set in stone, they may give it a pass for that reason alone.

You may (if you’re lucky) get a response like “We love this idea, but we’re targeting a younger audience - can we make the main characters a little younger?”
You should be prepared going in how much you are willing to compromise.

Beyond that, however, you also don’t want to OVERWHELM the executives in your first meeting. These people see hundreds of pitches a week, and chances are, their time with you will be limited...

... so you can’t expect to take up three hours of their day to explain the intricate cosmology of your “Vampire Hunters in High School” concept and how “Magic only works on Days with a ‘U’ in them” and how it's heavily influenced by The Iliad.

A pitch document should be easily digestible with more pictures than words. A stranger should be able to glance through it and have a pretty solid understanding of what your show is about.

Consequently, you must learn to put your description in as FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE...

... and, by golly, every single one of those words should paint a picture! You are on the clock, and pictures talk WAY faster than words.
There’s no perfect formula, but I try to keep Pitch Documents under ten pages long and pepper them with as much visual prettiness as possible.

My philosophy for a pitch document is one that can be applied to many things in life:

MAKE THEIR JOB EASY!

If you walk in with a 300 pg. bible and a long-winded sermon, you’re putting the burden on THEM to explain it to THEIR bosses. And they don't know it like you do.

Their bosses will say, “Any good pitches today?” and they’ll reply, “Well… kinda… I dunno… so… here’s this thing…” and then they proceed to explain YOUR show in the WORST way possible, and then it will VERY likely to be met with, “I don’t get it… throw it in the ‘no’ pile.”

And that will be that.

You want the OPPOSITE to happen. After your pitch, you want the executive to SPRINT to their boss and say "Holy shit! I just struck gold!!!"

That's not gonna happen if your idea is verbose, boring and difficult to follow.

Tomorrow I will cover what a Pitch Document should consist of in more specific detail.

Thanks for reading! Please give whatever feedback or input you may have in the comments - and, please, PLEASE retweet, share, and tell your friends about this endeavor...

NEXT INSTALLMENT - Anatomy of a Pitch Document

Zig-a-Zig AH, party people!

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