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Reflections on my Oh Yeah pitch

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Reflections on my Oh Yeah pitch

Just wanted to share this experience:

I submitted a pitch to Frederator (by mail) back in October. I didn't hear anything for a long time and had resigned to the idea that I wasn't going to hear anything. But I finally heard back from them that they liked it but had notes.

The first emotion is excitement. They liked SOMETHING about it. It's really great to have a development exec. tell you that they like your idea...but then you have to hear what they DON'T like. Brace yourself. You might not even realize how attached you are to some of your own ideas.

The two biggest notes; it was too long and there were too many characters. What I sent in was edited down from something that I'd been working on as a half-hour pilot idea, so it was certainly over 7 minutes. I knew it, but I wanted to send them all my best ideas. I thought I was home free, since they didn't tell me to change anything; didn't really say they didn't like anything; just that it needed to be shorter and simpler.

For Pitch #2 I was focused on keeping a few things that were specifically mentioned in the "liked it" category. I just chopped a lot of characters (arghh!) and a few gags I'm still in mourning for, and pretty much managed to send something that was the first pitch, only shorter and sleeker.

Again, I didn't hear anything for a while. I'm far away from New York and Burbank, so I was encouraged to mail in my submissions, saving any in-person pitching until a few go-rounds this way. That's agony, since I know there are thousands of people with great ideas banging down their doors in person every day. Finally I got a reply back that they had notes on the second pitch.

Notes v.2. Still like the concept, but maybe they shouldn't do 'this' and maybe not 'that' (some things that were in the "Liked-it" category before). Most importantly, "not really seeing the 'who, what, why' of the character"...

That conference call was like the ground coming out from under me. Yuk. What I discovered, after I got over the feeling that they simply lacked my vision, was that their notes were dead-on. I had sent them a good concept with some neat gags, and with a cute-enough character that fit the situation, but I hadn't really done the work on the character. I HAD created the whole thing from the concept down, not the character up. The character was lacking for it and that's really what Frederator is most-interested in.

I went into working up Pitch #3 much-less confident about the outcome, but I was (enjoying is not the word...), let's say "gaining" something from the process. I was ancy, since I knew they were getting close to filling all the spots but I made myself take the time to work through some character-building exercises (which can be found easily online, it turns out). You want to be able to answer questions like "what does your character think their best and/or feature is".

It's such a simple thing, really--seems so basic that you could convince yourself you don't need to do it, but it really helped me. I got my characters much-better defined and that helped to shape the events that transpire. Some existing gags survived, but I had to rewrite quite a lot.

So, I was satisfied with the last short I sent them, even though I wasn't optimistic about my chances anymore. I actually haven't heard a definitive "Pass" back from them yet, and they haven't announced that they're full, but I know they've got to be really close. (They've taken the call for submissions link off the website). I appreciate the time I was given and, if they do it again next year, I feel like I've got a bit of a head start.

To sum it up: it's all about the Character.

tedtoons's picture
Ted Nunes - www.tedtoons.com

Ted Nunes - www.tedtoons.com

Great information Ted, thanks for sharing your experience.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Sounds familiar. If your characters require a lot of building, there's just not time in a seven minute cartoon to do it.

Take "One Froggy Evening," for example. Simple man, motivated by greed and pride (we all are, that's the point). And a frog that performs for some unknown reason for a VERY limited audience only. We don't need hows or whys. This "silent" cartoon is driven mostly by expression and emotion, so it doesn't need complex characters. But try to fit a stroy in there where we HAVE to know more about the man for it to work, and it will NEVER work.

My pitch was the same way. I tried to fit a square peg into a round hole, just to get my people on film. Didn't work.