Pitching over Zoom, The Secrets of the Kelpie, The Last of Us
Over the last week, I’ve been pitching a TV project that I’ve been working on for what feels like, and what is, years. We’re going out to streamers in the first instance (because of a genre element to it, it would be a pretty big show) and as it’s with a US studio, we’re pitching to execs in LA.
Over zoom.
In one way, this makes it a lot easier. The wonderful deck that the producers have pulled together for me is much easier to manage. No need to balance an iPad on your knee while slumped on a treacherously low couch, or fumble with oversized boards you’re inevitably going to drop at just the wrong moment. I’ve even worked out my zoom settings so a video feed of my face is superimposed over the slides; I peer out of them like a benevolent god from the clouds.
Even though I say so myself, it looks pretty good, almost like I’m a professional, competent person, pitching an actual TV show.
What’s more, there’s a little less pressure to make the pitch itself seem easy and spontaneous. I’m a preparer — I wish I was a talented enough storyteller to just reel a compelling pitch off the top of the dome — but that’s not me. And while, when you’re in the room, it can feel sort of weird to try to launch into a big, scripted presentation — on zoom, it seems a little more acceptable for it to feel staged.
What is difficult, however, is to get any kind of sense of how things are going. Very kindly, the suits tend to go on mute as soon as you start — can you imagine the distracting coughs and sounds of shuffling otherwise? But what this means is that they become tiny, silent faces on a screen, passively watching. You burble on at their frozen visages for what feels like an eternity.
Only when they have questions at the end are you able to gauge what their reaction was — but even then, they tend to be quite cagey. Sometimes the questions are clever and incisive, sometimes it’s clear that they’ve been zoned out the whole twenty minutes you’ve been speaking. But they never quite come up with the plaudits that you’d like.
It’s always something business-like, like “what’s the balance of soap to mythology in this”, and never “you’re wonderful and where should we back up the money truck?”
Yesterday, I got a story in the post. It was written by my seven-year-old niece, she’d typed it up, made it into a booklet, and sent it on to me (I assume in the hope that I might be able to set up the rights somewhere).
“The Secrets of the Kelpie”, it’s called and it is GREAT.
Ever since my wife’s parents casually mentioned to my niece that they’d once been to Loch Ness and might have seen something lurking beneath its waters, she has been fascinated by Scottish mythology. First, it was Nessie, then Unicorns. Now her latest obsession is the Kelpies: shape-shifting water spirits that often take the form of horses and drag unsuspecting children to their deaths. She’s cheery like that, my niece.
I passed the story to my wife to read, and she said she could tell we were related. The story bore some of the hallmarks of my style i.e. a tendency to make the occasional grammatical error, sudden swerves in point of view (particularly between the first and third person), and slightly implausible plot twists.
I‘ll take it though, because whatever else you might say about my niece’s literary capabilities, she can tell a story. A clear beginning, middle, and end, neat scene transitions, strong character motivation, and high stakes. It’s even got one of those classic horror story twists in the final sentence.
Arguably, the piece was slightly marred by a third act that leant heavily on the trope of “it was all a dream,” but it seems churlish to point out that it’s a little bit hack. Besides, it’s funny how young minds (and some older ones) return so often to that well; we sense that we are desperately in need of an ending, but also sense it might be rather hard work to get there.
There’s a similarly strong sense of storytelling exhibited by The Last of Us, HBO’s post-apocalyptic thriller set in a world where most of humanity has been wiped out by a deadly fungus. It’s based on the incredibly successful computer game of the same name — but I don’t suppose you can hold that against it.
As good as it is, I can’t love it. I dislike myself intensely for this, but I think I’ve become one of those people—the people I scoffed at producers and execs as they banged on about them since the pandemic. I’m just in a place where I want to watch something, feel-good.
Maybe that’s overstating it a bit. It’s not that I’m actively seeking out the light and frothy (I just rewatched ANDOR for god’s sake!). I’m willing to be emotionally beaten up and bruised. I’ll even countenance having the complex feelings I’ve built over the last few difficult years punched a little, like a bully might punch your arm when you’ve just told him you’ve just had your vaccination.
But Betsy to Murgatroyd, give me some distance! A dystopian future where society has collapsed after a transmittable virus? In the week when I can’t go out to the shops and buy salad?
It doesn’t help that some of the situations and plot points in The Last of Us resemble a feature I wrote in 2019, but that I’ve since given up on because of the pandemic. This gets made because this thing has a computer game behind it, I rail at my television screen. Where’s my HBO series?