Recording and Presentation: How to Make Your Pitch Videos Awesome
Margaret Lam shared the video standards she developed in collaboration with artists and agents as well as presenters who are looking for shows.
Recording of the info session and chat is here. (Published Sept 21)
You can read the essential guides to creating effective pitch videos for showcasing here.
This session focused on the content and format of pitch videos. In particular, the aim was to ensure that participants understand how to modify and edit their existing performance videos for use on the Pitch.
Margaret’s presentation slides including screen captures from ThePitch.ca are here.
The need to better understand the context for these pitch videos was brought out by participant questions. The following summarizes the main components of The Pitch from the sellers point of view (agents with their rosters and self-represented touring artists).
Accounts
To better understand The Pitch, Margaret explained the relationship between accounts / profiles, show pitches and showcase rooms. The Pitch is a secure business-to-business application that requires a user name and password to enter. Therefore, each user requires an account to manage access (passwords, account users). The Pitch also manages free trials, tracks usage and processes payment. Each account has an expanded profile with relevant, specific information.
Artist Profiles
Each artist or group or performance company has one profile. The artist profile, whether they self-represent or have an agent, includes searchable information about their artistic practice. It also includes links to social media and web sites, as well as a library of media assets. These assets are wide-ranging. They can include a short and long biography, photography/images for promotional purposes, links to audio clips, video clips that are used to create show pitches for presenters (buyers) and other important texts (e.g. discography, awards, descriptions of their performances/shows, reviews, touring history, and other information that influences buyers’ decision-making).
The artist profile can be part of the roster of an agency or it can be part of an artist’s own account if they are self-represented.
What is a Pitch?
A show pitch is always associated to a specific artist’s profile.
A typical pitch for concerts is comprised of five (5) separate videos that are combined into a single pitch:
- Introduction (1 minutes)
- Video clip 1, 2 and 3 (short intro and performance)
- Q&A (4 minutes)
For theatre and dance performances on tour, The Pitch allows for full-length performances because presenters require them to make buying decisions.
The video clips have to meet the video editorial and technical standards set out by The Pitch.
Each show pitch can stand alone and be “discovered” by buyers through the search function on The Pitch. Agents and artists can also market stand alone pitches pro-actively on the platform. For instance, presenters or presenting networks can issue a request for pitches with specific parameters. Any artist who qualifies can submit their pitch to these requests for consideration. A pitch can also be combined with other pitches in a curated Showcase Room.
What is a Showcase Room?
Any user on The Pitch can host a Showcase Room.
A Showcase Room is a space where a host drags and drops show pitches from various performers. Once the set up is complete, they invite presenters/ venues to view the assembled pitches in the Showcase Room. Invited presenters can view the pitches in any order they choose. Further, they can chat within the Showcase Room about the pitches they are interested in booking, and discuss building a tour for specific artists with their presenting colleagues.
There can be many other uses for Showcase Rooms. For instance, to pitch shows to presenting networks for their industry showcases; or presenting networks can create them for their programming committees that curate their physical or digital showcase events.
Booking artist tours tends to be quite complex with many variables affecting artists fees and logistics. Therefore, upon launch the actual negotiation or booking transaction is not a functionality The Pitch offers.
The Pitch will publish a fuller FAQ and outline the different user scenarios for each user group in some detail as we move through the current pilot period.
For More Information
Julie Haddow
Customer Success Specialist
service@thepitch.ca
.