The Art of Industry: An Introduction to Documentary Pitching (Online)
For practitioners looking to produce a market-ready pitch, this course offers a detailed overview of the forms of pitching preparation, written and visual materials, and tactics to approach funders and commissioning editors.
This course is for documentary practitioners who want to translate their ideas and material into a market-ready pitch. The programme will offer a detailed overview of the forms of pitching preparation, written and visual materials, and tactics of approach needed to approach funders and commissioning editors. The course is aimed at new and emerging producers and directors. It will cover both short and long-form film pitch materials, with a focus on presenting creative independent documentary film formats. Students are encouraged to prepare a real or hypothetical film to develop and ‘pitch’ at the end of the course.
Session 1
In this session students are given a deep primer of independent documentary financing and markets.
Session 2
In the second session we will discuss the specific formats of written pitches, and modes of approaching financiers from speculative emails to formal applications. This session will offer an in depth guide to preparing your written pitch and associated online material.
Homework: written pitch preparation
Session 3
In week three we will discuss the specific formats of pitching events from forums, to speed meetings, to networking and live pitches. This session will offer an in depth guide to preparing your verbal pitch and trailer, and the etiquette of live pitching.
Homework: verbal pitch preparation
Session 4
In the final session students will practice short verbal film pitches of their project with live feedback from the tutor and advice on next steps for their projects. We will look at specific funding opportunities for UK based filmmakers based on these pitches.
1x Universal Credit bursary place was available for this course. Please see our bursary policy here.
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Tutors
Luke W. Moody
Course Tutor
Luke W Moody is a creative producer and curator developing new work with LONO studio. From 2017-2019 he was Director of Film Programming at the world-leading non-fiction film festival Sheffield Doc/Fest curating the 200 film programme across short and long-form documentary film and producing live events. Previously he was Head of Film at Doc Society, co-commissioning long-form documentary cinema across six international film funds from development to completion including Oscar-winning CITIZENFOUR, and Oscar-nominated Virunga, The Square and Dirty Wars, and creative non-fiction works such as Shirkers, Black Mother, Hale County This Morning This Evening, and Bisbee 17. Additionally, he executive produced feature-length Indian documentary An Insignificant Man (Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London, IDFA) in 2016 and led on filmmaker outreach globally for Doc Society, managing UK impact distribution campaigns, innovating new means of creating social impact with documentary film. He also co-founded and curated creative documentary festival FRAMES of REPRESENTATION film festival at ICA, London and online curation platform Something Real.