It has now been nearly 11 months since I made my first pitch through Stage 32.
The "VIP" I pitched to has had my script since early July 2025 and I am thoroughly convinced of two things:
1.) Stage 32 is a scam website, preying on the hopes and dreams of gullible aspiring screenwriters.
2.) This "VIP" is, obviously, never getting back to me.
Thus, now I feel it is time to tell my story...
So, on
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025 I had a Zoom pitch meeting through Stage
32 with an executive / producer who, apparently, has worked with Sony and
Columbia Pictures. What they have done for those companies, I don’t
know… and should’ve probably investigated.
But I
digress.
Anyhow,
I won’t say this guy’s name, because I don’t want to burn any bridges.
But he
was specifically reading horror and thriller scripts.
He was
also 2 minutes late to our 10-minute pitch meeting.
He came
on screen and had kind of a Mark Zuckerberg look (though his profile picture on
Stage 32 makes him look a bit like an older Jason Flemyng). He’s also young
(I’m pretty sure he’s younger than I am). He also had something of a dude-bro
douchbaggy arrogance about him. Furthermore, he seemed to be seated on the
patio of an outdoor café (probably a Starbucks… or the ultra-hip,
ten-times-as-expensive L.A. equivalent) and had sunglasses on. How utterly
unprofessional! The guy couldn’t even look me in the eye!
Yikes!
He did
apologize for being late and complimented me on my Wes Craven tribute shirt
(which I made myself, eleven years ago when he passed…every time one of my
heroes passes, I get a shirt made for them).
We did
the usual niceties and asked how one another was doing, etc.
I then
told him to tell me when he was ready.
I then
launched into my elevator pitch which, essentially, outlines the concept, the
overall plot, a basic sense of the characters and my inspirations for writing
this (to give them an idea of the “feel”/mood/tone/vibe of the film).
When I
reference The Monster Squad he said cut in and mentioned that it
reminded him of that movie. Which is fine, that’s what I’m going for. But it
was a bit jarring. That and, I’m sorry, but historically I have not met that
many people who’ve seen Monster Squad. But I guess if you are a
horror-centric producer, you’ve seen it.
I then
alluded to the fact that Personal Demons has just had its 16th
film festival win.
Usually
this is the point where “VIPs” ask me for the highlight reel of my festival
wins.
He just
asked me (basically), “So… what… you submitted it to these competitions… and it
won?”
… Yeah.
That’s literally what I just said. Why was it necessarily to confirm that?
I
mentioned that, occasionally, I’d only get an “honorable mention” or something,
but typically I was an official selection, or I won some award or recognition.
He
asked me about the demon in my script and to explain it a bit more, because (he
said) the antagonistic nearly always gets the short end of the stick… Which is
odd. How many horror franchise villains (Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Pinhead) can
the average person name off the top of their head… and how many final girls can
they name (by the character’s name… not just the actor’s name)?
I told
him that my model for the demon was the Xenomorph in the first Alien
film (and some of the sequels) and that, while it was cut from the same cloth
as archetypal demons, that the script stayed with the demon for a lot of the
story, so you got a sense of his agenda, his motivation and his movements. I
also said that I reveal the mythology/theology of the story (with specifics to
the demon) in a moment of confrontation between the protagonists and the
antagonist (I compared it to when Nancy confronts Freddy at the end of Nightmare
on Elm Street). I won’t give the details I gave him, because they are
sacred to me and I don’t want anyone pilfering them, but he seemed impressed,
smiled and said he liked that detail.
He
asked what the demon’s name was.
I told
him it didn’t have a name and he seemed okay with that.
He then
asked if I saw this being a PG-13 movie, or R. Or if I saw it being “like Stranger
Things” where there was violence, but not too much.
I told
him that I wrote it as an R film (with hard gore) because it was modeled after
the movies from the 80’s-90’s that I grew up on, movies that took no prisoners.
But I (lied and) said that it could be trimmed down to PG-13 with only a
few snips to a few scenes. I then said it could have “an unrated 4K”. He smiled
and snickered at this. I firmly believe that, if you love movies, you love
physical media.
He
asked me when I wrote this movie.
I was
honest and told him ten years ago (at the time, remember this was July of 2025),
before Strangers Things and the 2017 adaptation of It came out,
and that I was a bit frustrated that those movies kinda stole my thunder. He
said, “No, that’s actually good for you!” I guess meaning people want similar
stories to ones they already love… and both those IPs are huge hits, so…
I also
said that I didn’t really do anything with the script until 2019, when I
started sending it out to film festivals. Then it started winning and I figured
I should do something with the script.
He also
how long I had been doing Stage 32. I told him just a week. That a random email
showed up in my inbox and I decided to try it and see what it was like. I think
that either surprised or impressed him. Can’t tell which.
Now
comes the part I really want to talk about…
Then he
started critiquing my pitch.
He
hewed and hawed and, basically told me that I needed to talk about the
characters more, give them names, let the VIP know about their relationships.
He then
started throwing stuff out.
“Do
they start out as friends?”
“What
brought them together?”
“Is one
of them a bully?”
He said
that I should have launched into the structure of the story more and maybe told
how the script starts out (I guess he meant the inciting incident?).
Again,
he started throwing stuff out (projections that I guess were fueled by his own
“creativity”):
“Does
the town cover up that it’s a demon killing these kids?”
“Is
there another town involved?”
“Is it
an urban legend about this demon?”
He then
started throwing out all kinds of buzz words, telling me that including the
characters, their relationships, the story structure (I guess he meant the
beats of the story… like the plot points in Syd Fields’s three-act structure)
and the world building which would make my pitch “more grounded… make it feel
more earned”.
I
honestly, in his California surfer-dude accent and his scatterbrained buzz word
vomit, couldn’t tell what part of my pitch he was criticizing more, or which
part he thought I should have accentuated more in my pitch.
But he
kept telling me which parts of my pitch he liked. He said my pitch “was strong”
and that he appreciated knowing that it was set in a “mining town” (I guess that
catered to his need for world-building), he said he liked the concept, and he
said I did a good job of making it unique and making it mine (this is after
telling me it reminded him of Monster Squad).
Now,
what aggravates me the most about this (and I should say that, if memory
serves, I’ve never had this kind of criticism from an agent… this must be
purely a producer thing… or just specific to this person) is that I’ve always
been told to give my elevator pitch first (the short and sweet version) to see
if they are interested. This should be brief, but impactful and should outline
the basic story, the concept, a vague understanding of the characters and (perhaps)
what your inspirations were in writing this. Maybe that last part is not part
of the typical pitching formula, but it’s always netted me good results. When I
told one agent that Critters was an inspiration for this script, he
thanked me for mentioning that film, told me he was friends with Dee Wallace
and then we geeked out about Dee Wallace’s horror filmography, with specific
emphasis on the Critters movies. That kind of stuff endears you to the people
you pitch to and sometimes, like with the story I just gave, offers you an “in”
with them.
But the
bottom line is: you give them the basics. The logline. The elevator pitch.
If they
want to know more, if they’re even remotely interested, they’ll ask.
I just
don’t understand why this guy couldn’t just have just asked me questions to
fill up the rest of the piddling few minutes we had left, instead of (passive
aggressively) reading me the riot act (that’s how I took it) and criticizing my
pitch for future reference (which is just a big red flag that he is already
unsure, or has his reservations about my pitch and, thus, my story, my script
and my writing… I see this as being a big “no” even before he “reads” it).
I would
have answered his questions (I had answers to all his multitude of questions
and info. to satisfy all his criticisms ready to go) if he had actually asked
them. Instead, I felt exhausted and, honestly, crushed when he blathered on
about what he would have changed about my pitch.
Another
thing that angers me to no end is that these VIPs make it seem like such
an imposition to show up to these pitch meetings (even though they are getting paid
to be there and, who knows, they might find their next client and the
next “It” screenwriter… though most of them resign themselves to the fact that
these pitchfests are a wasteland of untalented nobodies and they are just
making some extra vacation cash by showing up and even pretending to consider
the pitches given to them). And, as such, we are given precious little time
with these VIPs.
For
Stage 32 your pitch meetings (via Zoom… which is good that they’re at least
technologically up-to-date… FadeIn uses Skype (!) for their virtual meetings
during Hollywood Pitchfest) are ten minutes. Period. Then you get cut off and
the Zoom meeting involuntarily ends… And this guy wasted two of those minutes
by being late. So, we only had eight minutes. My pitch is a practiced and honed
3-5 minutes that covers all my bases and leaves room for questions. If I had
lengthened my pitch to include everything he wanted (in-depth character detail
and analysis, a sense of the world-building, the story structure/beats, etc.)
my pitch would’ve been (and I’m guestimating here) about 7-9 minutes. Which leaves
no room for questions or criticism. And if there’s anything I’ve learned about
agents and producers, they don’t want you to talk the entire time. They
want their voices to be heard and their comments, questions and
criticism to be part of the pitch. They are a very self-important lot… even the
agents with no famous clients and the producers without a credit (or notable
credit) to their name.
I even
pitched to an agent once who, after I thoroughly impressed him with my pitch,
said,
“Well, I need to get a sense of the story beats… but I’ll get those when I read
it.”
I don’t
know.
In the
end this VIP seemed about 30% “into” my pitch, and 70% married to his criticism
about how my pitch could’ve been better.
He
said, “I definitely want to take a look at it”, but it seemed like a begrudging
afterthought.
I asked
him how that worked, as I am new to Stage 32. He said he would request the
script through Stage 32 for me to send to him to read.
As I
write this (just hours after my pitch) we shall see if he actually does request
my script.
If he
does, and I am not holding my breath, I am fairly certain he will sit on for
months before I start asking (while being respectfully persistent) until he
finally shoots me down near the end of the year (if not longer).
But
time will tell.
Update: Well, this “VIP” did indeed
request my script (the next day, on Thursday, July 3rd, 2025… I
thought I’d written about that extensively in my blog… guess I didn’t).
Then, on
September 29th (88 days… nearly three months later) I wrote Stage 32
to see what the holdup was. They emailed me back with some frustrating
placating. I wrote about it here.
As I
write this now it is mid-May of 2026 and it has been 11 months since he
requested my script.
Yeah,
this dude is not getting back to me.
He was
picking up some extra fun money for the weekend.
What a
crock!
Afterthought: I went back and re-read the bio
of the guy I pitched to.
Here it
is (I am paraphrasing it from Stage 32’s site… but I have layered in my own
commentary here and there):
Basically
he was a “creative executive” at a major film studio (which is also a popular
electronics brand). He co-produced a children’s movie based on a 30+ year old
video game adaptation (of which there have been several sequels).
Apparently,
he has requested 12 scripts and 2 meetings from their last Pitch Session!
He was also
the “assistant” to a major movie producer (whose production and name is
everywhere) who specializes in exploiting popular horror IPs and preying on fanboy
nostalgia.
I don’t know. This guy didn’t
seem old enough to have worked on all these projects.
I’m guessing he is another
guy who was grandfathered into the Hollywood system (by the usual means, unique
to the American entertainment industry) and is now just kind of bumming around
Hollywood, throwing his limited clout around like a sledgehammer, just ‘cuz he
can.
This guy’s work on “horror”
is limited and is relegated to a lot of modern fluff horror (and the
aforementioned IP exploitation).
In short: I really resent
this guy wasting my time, money, taking my script, getting my hopes up (however
little hope I gave this situation) and trying to talking to me like he’s John
Carpenter.
