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Storytelling
Course: Storytelling > Unit 2
Lesson 6: Pitching and feedbackPitching
Introduction to pitching.
Want to join the conversation?
- Can these tips apply as well to Public Speaking, and when creating a idea and presentation in any field?(17 votes)
- All these are are tricks to get your mind off the fear and on anything else. Fear is paralyzing and that is what causes us to stumble; however, anything that gets you going in any other direction can be useful and you can then redirect your energy into your story/speech.(12 votes)
- How can you pitch a story that is so strange, people might not like it?(6 votes)
- That's exactly what pitching is about! Some people will like it, some won't, but everyone will give you good advice and no-one will hate YOU for it! Even strange (though I'm not sure what kind of strange you're talking about) stories could be made stronger, or clearer, or whatever, without becoming less strange!(8 votes)
- What if I don't want my story to be a movie, only a book? Should I still pitch and tell the story to others?(6 votes)
- You can still do this pitching a story to your publisher or becoming a self publisher sometimes you can pitch your story to your family, friends, mentors etc. this will help you seek feedback and help you develop your story stronger it's how I have developed more better at writing without mentoring, and pitching I limit my abilities to strengthen my stories.(6 votes)
- i don't like telling people my stories 'cause i'm shy and don't know what the people really think. any suggestions?(5 votes)
- If you have close friends or families, you could try with them. Even if your story isn't good, there's a good chance they'll break it to you nicely. You can always film yourself to look back on how you did, or pitch to your stuffed animals, or even the mirror! Lots of ways to practise. :) hope this helped!(2 votes)
- Would I pitch my whole idea? or just one scene?(4 votes)
- Try pitching one scene at a time, then try and see if the scenes flow correctly.(4 votes)
- what if i pitched to a stuffed animal??(4 votes)
- That would be great for practice, but if you want feedback, you need to pitch to someone that can talk back. >w<(1 vote)
- when the guy did the impersonation of mike I was like whoa(4 votes)
- Sandy Plankton's a nutso(4 votes)
- I get hysterical just thinking about pitching in front of someone ... I am terrified of speaking in public! and much more if it is about personal projects, because the few opportunities that I had in the past people hardly paid attention to me. it's frustrating...(4 votes)
- why do you have to edit constantly and change things(1 vote)
- Because not everything gets perfect the first time you write a story(4 votes)
Video transcript
- Hi, I'm Madeline Sharafian, you saw me briefly in the previous video. I'll be leading you through
the rest of this lesson on pitching, feedback and editorial. I'm a story artist here at Pixar and as usual, for this
lesson, I'll be joined by few other artists and editors. - Hi, I'm Bob Peterson,
I'm a writer at Pixar. - Axel Geddes, I am a film editor. - Anna Wolitzky, I am an editor. - Hi, I'm Domi, and you
may remember me from the first lesson on story telling. - As you saw in the previous video, you pitch your story
to people to understand what's working and what's not. And like so many other aspects
of creating a great story, getting good at pitching
takes a lot of practice. Andrew Stanton is a master at pitching, let's take a look at
one of his first pitches of Finding Nemo. - And he's woken up by his
six year old son, Nemo, who's now with a withered
fin, it's from the accident with the barracuda and he
swims really erratically and strangely but today
he's ping-ponging all over the place because today's
the first day of school. And he's all psyched and this is the day that he's been waiting for and this is the day his
father's been dreading because his untrust, his lack of trust, his fear of the ocean, everything is just coming to the surface because Nemo has Mr. Ray,
who's the science eccentric stingray teacher who likes
to bring all the kids out on a field trip to the reef
on the first day of school. And so father's just
nervously taking Nemo along and Nemo's just all excited
asking all these questions. Ah, maybe we'll see sharks
dad, you know sharks? No, no, and I don't plan on meeting any. Well how about sea turtles? Sandy Plankton said sea turtles
grow to be 350 years old. Well, I'm sure Sandy
Plankton's exaggerating, but if I ever meet one I'll ask them. And then they finally
make it to the school, Mr. Ray comes, all the kids get on top and father has to nervously watch and float with the other
parents as they go off and disappear into the reef. And he can't hide his anxiety, and the other parents all elbow him and go "Ah, don't worry, most
of 'em will make it back. "Ah, yeah, don't worry. "I remember my first time at the Drop Off, "oh boy did that scare me." Father says, "The Drop Off? "They're going to the Drop Off? "They can't go to the drop
off, that's too dangerous. "Nemo can't swim!" He panics and he goes off into the reef. - Notice how Andrew let the story unfold one element at a time. You may have also noticed that he used his personal energy to create a dramatic and emotional atmosphere. You might even wanna rewind
and watch the clip again, paying attention to how he used his voice and body movements to help
communicate the story. By far, the most common type of pitching we do at Pixar is does
by story artists like me. We repeatedly pitch
storyboards to the director as well as to each other, in an effort to make the
story better and better. Here's Valerie LaPointe pitching boards that she drew for Inside Out. - Oh my gosh, why have we
never been here before? He's like, uh, because mom and dad have been keeping this from us. (growls) - She was playing the role of
several different characters, reading their lines of
dialogue, and using changes in her voice to make each
character distinctive. All these elements help
your audience understand important story points,
including what the characters are feeling. Now when you're pitching,
don't feel like you have to describe every detail of your drawings, they can mostly speak for themselves. You'll want to use descriptive language to lead your listeners
to use their imaginations to fill in the details that
aren't shown in the boards. For example, you might want to say "a shadowy figure slowly enters the room," rather than "a guy walks in." Descriptive language helps, but you'll also wanna
pay attention to pacing. That is how quickly or
slowly you tell the story. You might wanna push through
an action clip pretty quickly while during a moodier period
you might wanna slow down, letting each moment breathe
and holding on a single drawing for added emphasis. Story artists each have their own style and approach to pitching. Let's get some addition
tips from our artists. - The best advice I've
ever gotten for pitching is to just be super, super
excited about whatever you're pitching to your audience. Don't be afraid that you're
gonna embarrass yourself, just be all in it and your
energy will be infectious and it'll get people
really, really into it. - So when you're pitching,
you want to let it flow. You want the movie to feel like the movie. And so that means not over explaining. Like I've been in pitches where
people will start in and say "okay, so he's walking down the street, "and okay, well this
isn't exactly the street "it'll be in and you know,
that shadow won't be there "and of course he's wearing glasses "and he won't be wearing glasses "and I should've used a
number two pencil for that "and I didn't and it
should have been a Tom Bo, "so anyway, he's walking down the street." Y'know, it's like get to it. It's like one day Sully's
walking down the street, here comes Mike, "What
are you doing, Sully? "What are you doing?" "Oh Mike, quiet." Y'know, you keep 'er
going, you keep it flowing. If you get to a place
where people are sitting up and laughing it means that
you're not just reading you are performing. - And the second thing
is just to practice. Practice in front of a mirror, practice with your super, super
close colleagues and friends and the more you talk
about it the more you say the pitch over and over again the easier it is and then
the less you'll be stumbling with your words, the more
you'll just be focusing on trying to communicate
this idea to the person in front of you. - I certainly practice it out loud. I'll sit at my desk and
I'll step through the images and perform them. Sometimes it helps to look in a mirror, but I'll do it five, six, seven times, and when you do it a
lot, you start feeling the rhythms of it and
that's very important that it's not just even
that it can slow down, speed up, what you want
is some texture in there. And with texture comes change and with that change oftentimes
you'll feel something, you'll go from happy to
sad, or sad to sleepy, but you wanna feel the changes as you go and that comes from rehearsal. - There's lots of
techniques people can do, like maybe do something to get the energy outside of yourself so
you're not building it all in so when pitch you're not just like blah! Like blurting out all the words that have been building up inside of you. I just like going to the bathroom, you can psych yourself up
in front of the mirror, just take a couple breaths,
breathing is really important and then just know that the
people that you're pitching in front of don't hate
you, nothing terrible is gonna happen if you
stumble and they're here to listen to your ideas
and they're excited about what you have to say and your story and just know that the
room is gonna be positive and just don't worry too much about it. The worst that can happen is you'd have to repeat yourself or you
stumble but that's fine, it's not gonna make them hate you. I kinda run through those things in my head over and over again and then I just take a couple breaths and I try to clear my mind
and then I just go in. - There's quite a bit to
think about when you're giving a pitch, so it takes practice. Use the next exercise to get started.