Though completing a script feels like a lot of work, it’s really just the beginning of making a film, and a script itself isn’t necessarily enough to properly introduce your story or you as a creator. Enter: the pitch deck. As Yang Bongiovi puts it, “We create it to accompany your screenplay to give it more life, to give it more action.”
When trying to find all the necessary resources for financing, producing and distributing a movie, you will need to be able to communicate what you are trying to do with your project, giving as much information as possible to really help grab the attention of those who can help you. Pitch decks are sent to a number of industry professionals, including but not limited to additional producers, development executives, sales agents, financiers or grantors, interview subjects, casting directors and a myriad of other potential collaborators.
Communicating with so many people in so many different areas of focus requires a very clear vision to ensure that everyone reading about your project will be on the same page. “Are you trying to get a producer on your project, financing or possibly distribution, or talent? It's about who you're going after, and it's the shortcut of getting engagement,” explains Yang Bongiovi. “And then, of course, your script’s going to have to be strong, because once someone sees your pitch deck and it looks incredible, that script is going to have to match the vision.”
Rhodes has plenty of experience in tailoring a pitch deck for certain audiences. She recalls, “For Chasing Coral, we ended up making 23 different decks at different phases in that project. It really was for us trying to speak to the individual audiences that we are trying to communicate with, whether that was an academic institution, a financier, a composer, etc.”
It may be helpful to start with a lookbook, or a collection of images. “That's the director's vision, so that's probably the first place I go so I can assess the filmmaker since I love to be part of his or her journey. So the lookbook is really a visual story of what they envision and hope to achieve,” says Yang Bongiovi. “Not all of my peers are going to read a screenplay. And if they do, it could possibly go awry, because if they don't understand what the intention and the visuals are. The lookbook really calms anybody's nerves by knowing that this is the vision of this filmmaker.”