Thread by @FountainCartoon

#animation #cartoons #storyboarding #comics #directing #Filmmaking #tutorial #MASTERCLASS #writing #screenwriting
PITCHING A CARTOON SHOW
By John Fountain

CHAPTER 6 - Follow up

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

So... you’ve pitched your cartoon!
Congrats!

In many cases, you’ll have a pretty good idea what your chances look like within the first 120 seconds of your pitch.

By the time you speak the title of the show and first paragraph of your pitch, you’ll probably be able to see it on their faces.

Anything other than a “I love this idea!” and you’re looking at a “maybe” at best. “Interesting” is often code for “no.”

But, as I stated previously, you’re not just pitching a cartoon, you’re pitching yourself… so you need to maintain your composure no matter what.

Be sure to thank them for their time - because, believe it or not, they’ve already invested money in you and your cartoon just by seeing you.

Time is the most valuable commodity there is, and they’ve just spent some on you. Be appropriately gracious.

Now comes the hardest part: staring into the void while you wait.

Given half an opportunity, you can drive yourself insane with anxiety. But, once again, you have to put yourself in the shoes of whomever you pitched to…

Chances are, they probably didn’t call an emergency meeting of the entire development team and declare that they need to draft up a contract with your show's name at the top and have it signed by you before the sun sets.

Even if they LOVED your pitch, they’re probably thinking about their next appointment, the rest of their day, what they’ll have for dinner that night, and so on and so on.

Yes… I know it’s a tough pill to swallow - but you have not suddenly become everyone’s top priority.

Oftentimes, development executives take multiple pitches throughout the week and then they don’t even bring them up until their development meeting the following Monday where they all share the new crop of pitches.

And yours will be one among many.

Additionally, people take sick days or go on vacations… meetings get postponed or run too short to fit yours in… there are a million factors that you will never know about, and they all contribute to you sitting around biting your nails while you await feedback.

The best advice I have for you here is: FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO THINK ABOUT!
Arrange your NEXT pitch… go camping… take up knitting… anything to keep you occupied, because you could be waiting weeks or even months just to hear that they haven’t gotten around to it yet.

You have exactly one more tool at your disposal and you can only use it once:

The follow up email.

Sometime between 24-48 hrs. after your meeting, you should send a follow up email saying something like,

“just wanted to thank you again for your time and I look forward to hearing your feedback.”

(Pro-tip: be mindful of the time stamp on your email… sending it at 3am on a Saturday looks really weird)

You will likely get something polite back in response, and that will be that.

If months go by, you can consider it a “no.”

But you shouldn’t be sitting around waiting anyway… you should be using this time to pitch to as many outlets as you can.

Pitches often get lost because of regime changes within the company. If there’s been a shakeup in development where people quit or got fired, you may have to start all over again!

The tendency is to see this all as incredibly simple, and it’s simply not.
There are a million moving parts at work and you are a single exclamation point in a huge novel.

So… wait. Keep busy.

And brace yourself for “it’s not what we’re looking for.”

UNLESS… !!!???

NEXT INSTALLMENT: “We’d like to see more”

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.

Zig-a-Zig AH, party people!

As usual, this installment is sponsored by my scattershot YouTube Channel!

If you like this kind of content, please spread the word because it helps me justify spending the time on this that I should be spending on stuff that pays!