Writing a TV Movie Pitch

The humble MOW pitch is what I like to consider the amuse-bouche of the TV movie creation process. Grab your daintiest fork and let's dig in.

I have resting pitchy face.

If you ever catch me staring blankly into the abyss, it’s probably because I’m coming up with a pitch for a TV thriller in my head.

Photo by Etienne Girardet

A pitch for a TV movie isn’t the massive pitch deck or bible that you think of for a feature or series. It’s just a single paragraph.

Sounds simple, right? Doesn’t it always…

If we were to look at the writing process as a meal at a fancy restaurant, the pitch would be the “amuse-bouche”. It may be tiny and unassuming, but it’s gotta pack layers of flavour and texture to get that mouth excited. It’s a promise of a wonderful meal. In the same way, the pitch is a promise of a great story.

To continue the metaphor, if the decision-maker likes what they’ve tasted, they’ll order the appetizer, which is your 2 pager. If they like your 2 pager, you’re green lit for the full meal and you can start cooking up your main, otherwise known as the script.

Of course, we can’t forget about dessert! Dessert is reserved just for you, the writer! It comes when you cash your cheque and get to delight in seeing your film on TV or a streamer. Creme brûlée never tasted so good!

Of the four TV thriller films that I’ve written/am writing, three of them were green lit from these kinds of one paragraph pitches (the other, I was hired to write the script for a previously green lit 2 pager based on the strength of my sample. Fear not: I’ll cover writing a sample script in a future post).

What is a pitch for a TV movie?

This short, single paragraph pitch is also sometimes called an elevator pitch. It should be so short, concise and exciting that you could pitch it to someone in an elevator and they’d be sold on the idea by the time you reached the ground floor.

This kind of pitch tells the entire story condensed down into 5-8 sentences. You can treat it like an extended logline. If you don’t know how to write a logline, rest assured that every time I’m tasked to write one, I suddenly don’t know how to write one anymore either! {I’m working on a massively comprehensive post about writing loglines… the kind of post I scour the internet for every time I have to write one. Will this post be for you, fellow screenwriter, or selfishly just for my own reference? It’s probably both.}

Let’s break down a pitch

Here’s an example of one of my pitches that was rejected:

Dead Girls Don’t Talk
Popular girl INGRID (16) sees her world come crashing down when her best friend, ALLIE (16) is killed under mysterious circumstances. When she finds Allie’s schoolbag hidden in the trunk of her new stepfather and principal of her high school, HANK (55), Allie dives headlong into uncovering the truth. Just when she believes she’s unearthed the secrets of Hank’s dark past, Ingrid goes to confront him, but instead finds him dead in his office. It is now that Ingrid discovers Hank was just a pawn in the real killer’s game, the school superintendent, who Allie was about to expose for sexual harassment. Now that Ingrid knows too much, she must outwit the superintendent and turn him in before she becomes his next victim.

Now let’s break that pitch down anatomically:

[DEAD GIRLS DON’T TALK]

[ACT 1:] Popular girl INGRID (16) [PROTAGONIST] sees her world come crashing down when her best friend, ALLIE (16) is killed under mysterious circumstances [INCITING INCIDENT]. When she finds Allie’s schoolbag hidden in the trunk of her new stepfather and principal of her high school, HANK (55), Allie dives headlong into uncovering the truth [TURNING POINT 1]. [ACT 2:] Just when she believes she’s unearthed the secrets of Hank’s dark past, Ingrid goes to confront him, but instead finds him dead in his office. It is now that Ingrid discovers Hank was just a pawn in the real killer’s game, the school superintendent, who Allie was about to expose for sexual harassment. [ACT 3:] Now that Ingrid knows too much, she must outwit the superintendent and turn him in before she becomes his next victim [FINAL SHOWDOWN].

TITLE: In the TV thriller world, we need a title that screams “THIS IS A THRILLER”. Just like Christmas movies always manage to have the word “Christmas” in the title, a thriller title needs to allude to death, murder and intrigue. FYI: This will just be the working title as it’s almost never the title upon release. Don’t be too upset if your perfect title is changed by the distributor’s marketing department!

ACT 1: Start with a bang. You want your pitch to grab the reader from the first sentence with the protagonist and the inciting incident. Let’s also hear the Act 1 turning point to see what sends our protagonist into the world of the story.

ACT 2: Hint at the action and plot points that will keep us along for the ride in act 2. You don’t need to go into too much detail because this is just a taste of the overall story. Unlike in some pitches where you want to keep an element of mystery about how it all unfolds, we need to know in a TV thriller pitch who the real killer is, and most importantly, their motivation for their evil deeds.

ACT 3: Let’s hear about the climax (I call it the “final showdown”) and the extremely high stakes for the protagonist. In the case of a thriller, this should always be their life.

It’s deceptively simple but it’s so important to hook the decision-maker, especially since they are probably reading hundreds of pitches to fill their annual slate. Which brings me to my next point…

Writing pitches is a numbers game.

I’ve probably written 60 pitches for TV thrillers so far and three of them were green lit. I’m terrible at math but the internet tells me that’s a 5% success rate. Not great odds, I know. You don’t just want to create great pitches, you want to create as many great pitches as possible.

When I pitch a thriller, I usually send over five to eight pitches that I think are worth reading. This means that I’ve whittled them down from a list of 12 to 15.

I recommend turning any and all ideas you may have into pitches. Even the ridiculous. You never know what is going to stick or where potential can be seen. Your seemingly harebrained idea could be a nugget that sets you out on the path to a green lit film.

Since a pitch is just a promise, you can afford to be vague. Because it’s a numbers game, you don’t need to be precise and have the entire film mapped out when you create the pitch. That will come later after you’ve dazzled the decision-makers with your pitch and are asked to write a 2 pager. This document is what is going to fully sell them on your story and get you your coveted green light.

Some more things to keep in mind…

Don’t send a pitch you’re not excited about or can’t get excited about

If you film gets green lit, you’re going to actually have to write it, so make sure every pitch is something you’re looking forward to writing. Or, if you’re like me, you can find the excitement in any writing gig.

Know your audience (for the pitch, not the movie!)

In this case, knowing your audience doesn’t mean the people who will be watching your film on TV. Your audience for your pitch is the exec / producer / buyer at Lifetime, Hallmark, Tubi, etc. who is going to give you the green light. Become a TV movie freak. Overconsume TV thrillers. Make Christmas movies your go-to. Make notes as you watch. Who are the characters? What are their motivations? How can you write a pitch that fits within that framework but offers something fresh?

There’s more than one way to skin a TV movie

Having said all that, not every MOW starts with a pitch. Occasionally, and especially in spaces like Horror which have even smaller budgets, fully completed scripts are preferred simply because there is no money for development.

The completed script model can be challenging because most working screenwriters don’t have the time to invest into a script that may or may not be picked up. If you’re writing for fun or to build your career, this can certainly be an option for you!

Writing pitches is good for your craft

I used to just jot my ideas for scripts down in a few cryptic words. Needless to say, months later, these snippets were as clear to me as trigonometry. Since I started writing TV movies professionally, I now write down all my ideas, even for my own passion projects, in this one paragraph pitch format.

Regardless of whether you’re pitching a TV movie or not, taking the few extra minutes to think a little deeper about character and plot is a great little writing exercise that keeps you flexing your story development muscles. So, please, fill your notebooks with these little promises for great stories ahead!

Thanks for joining me as I write my fourth commissioned TV movie! Check out what’s coming up soon on Cut To: Writing a Movie…