Winning Pitch It! at KidScreen 2007
February 20, 2007 by Ken Bautista - We recently got back from the eighth annual Kidscreen Summit in New York City, the premiere event for executives in the children's entertainment industry. It was another fantastic event, with great sessions and activity, which we'll be posting more about soon. But we also wanted to write about the Pitch It! event that was held at the end of the 3-day summit... we pitched CIE... and won!
The official Pitch It! description: "Watch as brave producers take center stage to pitch their projects for boys ages six to 10 to our distinguished panel of judges (not to mention a room full of other potential buyers, licensees, retailers, distributors and co-production partners). The Summit ends with a bang as votes are cast based on the merit of the project AND the quality of the pitch."
Intimidating? Yup. I knew what to expect watching other producers pitch at the big event the last few years at Kidscreen. But it was still nerve-racking to think about pitching in front of over 1,300 executives from the children's entertainment industry AND to a panel of senior executives. We found out we were one of only four producers to be selected to pitch in the competition a mere two weeks before the event. So we hustled to get ready.
The judges: John Rooney (YTV Corus Entertainment), Sebastian Debertin (KI.KA), Howard Litton (Nickelodeon UK), Bob Higgins (Cartoon Network), David Levine (Disney)
I just wanted to pitch on the first day of Kidscreen, but I had all week to think about it instead. So I used the time to pitch it to Jason, fellow Albertans (who were at Kidscreen too), and other people we met with during the conference.
Ken and Jason. Minutes before the big pitch.
Six minutes isn't a long time. We were also dealing with a property that wasn't your typical broadcast series. We had online, mobile, real world locations, and broadcast mixed into a single entertainment experience for our 8-12 demographic. We had some interesting (and risky) things planned for the pitch (planting a clue under a judge's chair, having my computer crash, getting phone calls), all which could have gone either way.
No stopping us now. Six minutes and counting.
But in the end, doing these things as part of our pitch made it a lot more memorable and helped to communicate the spirit of our project to the audience (and to the judges). And so we won in both categories - pitch quality and project viability. We won a bunch of stuff - a full page ad in Kidscreen Magazine, a full pass for next year's Kidscreen, a tween research report (awesome), and, most importantly, more exposure for our project as we get closer to our launch in the fall.
Some final shout outs are in order... Congrats to my fellow pitchers, John Rice (Jam Media), Ciara Breslin (Busy Ant Productions), and Paul Shuttleworth (Handle and Spout), who all had wonderful projects to pitch. To team Hotrocket without whom this pitch would not have come together. To my wife who heard the pitch over and over and over again. And finally to Molly and Naomi Brierley for lending their voices and faces to add that final piece that would make our pitch a winner!