Paul Pauwels gives Pitch Advice
“Don’t be afraid of showing your passion. Prepare yourself and do your homework. Try to find out who will be present during a pitching session and what kind of slots people are responsible for. Use body language, make sure the producers see you and remember your face. Entertain your audience! They will be grateful for it. Listening to a lot of pitches can be a dull job. Make sure your project stands out. Humor always works, but in the right measure. Don’t turn the pitch into a stand-up comedy routine.”
These are just a few sentences from Paul Pauwels, a veteran in documentary sessions all over the world, a producer – and an always strong supporter of filmmakers, who have something important to say.
Of course there is no recipe for how to pitch but down-to-earth advice conveyed in an entertaining manner as does Pauwels in three texts for POV, on their website, as a guest-blogger, is good reading and useful for beginners as well as for those, who have been in the business for years. Year after year I have seen professionals doing bad presentations at the idfa Forum because they had not done their homework.
Pauwels makes his focus on the written and the verbal pitch – and (see quote above) “when you are in the room”.
