Film PITCHING guide from executives at SXSW

A hit team of Hollywood producers discussed the art of pitching at a SXSW (the Texas festival) session. Quotes are from the article by Liz Nord (2016) How Not to Pitch a Movie: Production Execs Tell All.

NB: the article contains an image which may be considered disturbing/NSFW (poor choice from a great site).

I did learn a new term from this myself: sizzle reel! Read on [click the read more] to find out what that is!

Last year, Shaked Berenson's company got 28 scripts from agents, double that number from managers, and slightly more from producers. About ten times that number were unsolicited. 

Epic Pictures Group made five films that year.
Berenson and his fellow SXSW 2016 panelists, who have decades of Hollywood producing experience between them, gave a few pointers. The group included Gudrun Giddings, CEO of G4C Innovation; Travis Stevens, CEO of Snowfort Pictures (whose film Teenage Cocktail is playing at this year’s fest); and Winnie Kemp, Director of Development at Super Deluxe/Turner.

FESTIVAL Aesthetica Warp masterclasses and more York November 2015

The ASFF has attracted important industry figures. ASFF tag.

One of the 2015 masterclasses is focussed on convergence

I've led trips twice to the ASFF, a film festival that screens short films + music videos in unusual venues around York, linked to the magazine Aesthetica (focussed on photography and other media arts), and its been a great experience for students - here's an account by one student.

Another 2015 masterclass

The masterclasses have been superb, and simply ideal - we've heard directly from the likes of Barry Ryan (senior producer at Warp Films), Danny Cohen (cinematographer on several Warp and Working Title movies, including Dead Man's Shoes and Les Miserables if memory serves me right?!), and Craig McNeil and James Harman (respectively, music video producer and director for the world's largest music Indie, Beggars Group and his long-term editor).

A topic I've blogged on a few times...

BELOW: Details, links, prices

Eric Fellner pre-WT: sleazy pop vids?

Co-founder Sarah Radclyffe left WT in 1992 when they effectively became a Polygram subsidiary (albeit with operational independence), and Eric Fellner stepped in to join the other co-founder Tim Bevan, an immensely successful partnership that continues to tower over British cinema 2 decades on.
Here's the incomparable Indie auteur Alex Cox* on Fellner, who he crossed paths with around the time (1985) Bevans and WT were releasing My Beautiful Laundrette, the company's 1st feature. Cox was in pre-production for Love Kills, later renamed Sid and Nancy, a typically warped, slightly surreal biopic of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen ...