Pitch This!

By Alex Cruickshank

The ballroom of the Sutton Place Hotel in downtown Toronto teems with excitement. The room is buzzing with people. The atmosphere brings back memories of the vaudeville halls of the 1920s. And like those days of old, the audience has come to see a performance. Tonight, six teams of independent filmmakers will do their very best to convince a panel of industry professionals their feature film idea merits $10,000. One lucky team will be the winner of Telefilm Canada’s Pitch This!.

In its fifth year at the Toronto International Film Festival, Pitch This! continues to grow in popularity. Of the 80 submissions received, six finalists were chosen. Pitch coaches were assigned to help finalists polish their entries for the competition.

Tonight, in front of a room full of industry delegates, and with the International Industry Advisory Committee acting as judge, those finalists are like contestants in a game show. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Winning the grand prize could be the difference between seeing their project come to life or watching it fall apart.

Every good game show needs a memorable host and Roger Crouse definitely fits the bill. The host of Rogers Television’s Reel to Real resembles a 1950s quiz show host.

He begins the evening by introducing the competition. Dangling the prospect of a giant $10,000 novelty cheque, Crouse introduces the first pitch.
The six teams have six minutes for their pitch. The presentations are as diverse as the proposed feature film ideas. Some teams opt for humour while others approach the event in a business-like manner. Some act out a scene from their screenplay, hoping the material talks for itself. Others stress the economic viability of their project. There is no magic formula for success.

Kelley Alexander, director of industry with the Toronto International Film Festival, explains what the judges look for in a winning pitch.
“They choose what they perceive to be a viable project that deserves the award every year,” Alexander says. “They are looking for the team that is able to use the prize money to get the project further.”

Fifteen excruciating minutes pass and the judges re-emerge with their verdict. At the podium, Crouse announces the 2004 winner – Remembrance.
The beauty and effectiveness of the winning pitch lies in its simplicity. Laura Fleck, producer of Remembrance, says the team’s strategy was to focus on the story and not worry about the project’s finances.

Co-writers and lead actors Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern designed their pitch around a concept that has sold films to audiences everywhere for decades: a movie trailer.

The house lights dim as the trailer begins. Past awards associated with the project scroll across the screen. The list is impressive. The production has been nominated for, and taken home, numerous awards for excellence in short film.

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