Finally, I arrived at the Expo with great expectations. You just can’t pitch if you aren’t positive and I was as positive as possible. The actual process of pitching was almost designed to remove that hope. Pitch people herd into the staging area to hear the calls of the next group scheduled to pitch. They peer at boards that list where the company they are pitching to is located in the dozens upon dozens of tables. As the pitch people get closer to the launching space, you can feel the stress, fear, and nerves gathering the necessary energy to produce a really top drawer flop sweat. It is a veritable bouillabaisse of genetic hope and despair to watch. The second year I pitched, I thought it would all make a very compelling movie.
I stood in the launch area and watched a hundred rituals of luck and nerve as everyone filed closer to the mound and a chance to throw the perfect pitch. I call it the launching zone because everyone crowds around and you have a scant few minutes, I mean five minutes, to find your table seat, introduce yourself, pitch your first script, find out they don’t want that, do half a pitch on your second script, and try to get that poor soul trapped in his or her own form of pitch hell to want to give his or her contact information to you, the last person in the world they want at their desk. Add another negative; they know you are a beginner, so the predisposition in their mind is something like "AAARRRGGGGHHH..." The odds are so stacked against you.
The thing is, the folks on the other side of the table desperately want the next great screenplay like they want oxygen; however, they have to listen to hundreds of terrible ideas and bad pitches to find that one nugget of Oscar gold. It is a nightmare for all involved.
Pitching sucks on both sides of the table, but on the production side, at least they have the keys to the castle - or at least the vestibule - of the kingdom. Their greatest need is to find the next great script; their fear is the success of a script they passed. Lucky for them, the chances of passing on the next great script is very small, especially at a pitchfest full of newbies. For the writer who has spent somewhere between months and years on a quest to birth a fabulous script, those on the other side of the table are the first “No” hurdle. Afterwards, the just-finished new pitch pros scoot from the big room and make quick notes to themselves trying to remember the name of the guy they just pitched to (was it Gary or Larry, damn, I can look that up on the Internet — I hope).
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