6 Reasons Why you need a Pitch Deck
Pitch decks are a crucial tool in enrolling investors and collaborators into your creative vision, to see your project’s potential market success and, ultimately, secure funding for your film. Before we dive into why it matters, let’s talk about what a pitch deck is.
What is a pitch deck?
A pitch deck is a document that outlines the key elements of your project and helps future investors and collaborators understand where you are taking them creatively. It’s a comprehensive overview of your project. A strong pitch deck tells a story in its own, visually drawing your reader in as you give them the rundown of your show.
Key information included in all pitch decks are:
What’s the story
what’s the story’s main conflict
who are the players
what’s your visual and emotional perspective
What the project is similar to (comps or comparables)
Why this project is timely
whose behind the ideas. (Aka your team and you)
Pitch decks are living, breathing documents that shift based on who you’re sending them to. Depending on who you’re reaching out to, you may or may not include the budget, target audience, and marketing strategy. You might also want to change the order of slides to cater to that person’s role on the project.
Reason #1 — A Pitch Deck Makes Your Film More Digestible
We live in a world of information overload. Asking people to read an entire script assumes a great deal of ownership over their time when they are just getting to know you. Most people skim articles, emails, and your pitching materials before committing to read something—you’ve probably noticed this about yourself as well. A strong pitch deck allows readers to skim the headlines and find important elements quickly in interesting way.
Reason #2 — A Pitch Deck Makes Your Film More Memorable
Everyone’s script looks the same at a glance: black and white words on a page. “What was that film’s title again?… shoot I forgot. Oh well. Next.”
Pitch deck give your project a clear visual that sets you apart from others and makes you memorable. “What what that film called? … It was that film with the colorful pageant cover photo about a young girl coming of age… Ah, here it is!”
Reason #3 — A Pitch Deck Makes Your Film More Financeable
Whether you are seeking financing from a production company, a studio, or private investors, a pitch deck is a powerful tool that can help you make a compelling case for why you project is worth investing in because a good pitch deck ignites people’s imagination. When tailoring your pitch deck for investors, you want to provide a clear and concise overview of your story, target audience, and budget, a pitch deck can help potential investors understand the project's potential return on investment (ROI) and make an informed decision about whether or not to fund the project.
Reason #4 — A Pitch Deck Brings Your Marketing to the Forefront
Since investors want to know how their money is coming back, a pitch deck is a great place to start creating a marketing strategy for your film or show. By identifying your target audience, key themes, and unique selling points of your project, you can create a comprehensive marketing strategy that shows investors how they can get their ROI and generate buzz for your film or show. This can include everything from social media campaigns to targeted advertising to promotional events and screenings. What fun can you have thinking about how your audience is going to interact with your project?
Reason #5 — A Pitch Deck Makes Your Film More Desirable to Talent
In addition to securing funding, a pitch deck is also essential for attracting key collaborators such as actors, designers, producers and a director to your film project. A well-crafted pitch deck demonstrates your ability to execute the project successfully. This can be particularly important when it comes to attracting high-profile talent, as they often have their choice of projects and will only sign on to projects that they believe have the potential to be successful.
Reason #6 — A Pitch Deck Hones Your Creative Vision
Another key benefit of a pitch deck is that it helps you refine your creative vision for your project. The process of outlining your story, characters, and key themes for your film or project in a deck helps clarify your ideas and identify areas where they may need to do additional research or development. Additionally, a pitch deck can help you identify potential challenges or obstacles that you may need to overcome in order to bring the project to fruition.
Crafting a pitch deck also gets you to start thinking about how you are bringing your film to life because pitch decks are visually driven. What do the world and characters feel like? How are you planning to shoot the project? When your visual research is done well, it ultimately works to support your overall creative vision rather than being added work. The process of creating a pitch deck will make your film or show stronger in the long run.
That’s all of the reasons why a pitch deck matters…
Hopefully, you can see why having a strong pitch deck is important to your film’s funding and creation. By providing a clear and concise overview of your project, your pitch deck becomes a calling card for your project to help secure funding and attract key collaborators because you’ve shown yourself to be a professional. Spending the time to craft a pitch deck seems undeniably important.
Now what?
If you’d like to know what makes a pitch deck stand out, join my free workshop: What Makes a Pitch Deck Stand Out. Get all the info and register here.
