Know Your Hook: A Development Producer on Pitching, Format, and the Mistakes That Cost You the Room

She Hassled a Producer at a Launch Event Until He Took Her Script.

Emma always wrote. Since she was a child she wrote, then found out people paid you to do it, and decided to do that. Over 30 years ago she was working at a TV production company on factual TV and was sent to cover various events in London. One of those events was the launch of a kids' TV show. She took her camera, found the person who was hiring writers, and hassled him until he took one of her samples. In those days that was an actual printed script. A physical printout, not an email.

She was hired partly because the whole writing team was male and they needed a woman. She is direct about this without dwelling on it: it was like that then, it is still somewhat like that now, though better. What matters more to her is the other thing she took from that first job: some of those contacts are still her contacts 30 years later.

The pathway for getting into UK television 30 years ago was clearer than it is now: there was a definite route starting with kids' TV. That route has become more complicated and more competitive. But the fundamentals have not changed: research the right person to contact, create a sample to prove you can do the work, be patient with rejection, and get into the world by whatever means available.

Know Your Hook. Then Know When to Leave the Person Alone.

The most important pitching lesson Emma gave came from watching her students at the London Screenwriters Festival. The formal pitch sessions were useful. But the students who made the best contacts, who came away with the most business cards and follow-up emails, were the ones who stayed in the bar afterwards. Informal settings, not the scheduled room.

This is a problem for writers, she says, because writers tend to be introverts. She includes herself: she is a massive introvert who would prefer to go home, but she has learned that staying in the room and having those conversations is part of the job. You show an interest in the other person first. You do not corner someone and immediately go into your pitch.

She described a student whose idea she found genuinely exciting: a show about lesbian pirates in the 16th century. At every pitch opportunity the student left that detail out, because she felt the show was about so much more than that. Emma's point: that is exactly the detail that makes someone open the deck. It is the hook. The thing you tell your friends to get them to watch. Once they are watching, they discover everything else. But the hook is what gets them in the door.

One Beautiful Image. Then a Very Simple Logline. Then Stop.

The biggest problem Emma sees in pitch decks is too much information. She is emphatic about this. When someone opens your deck on their phone in a cab between meetings, they have seconds. If the front page is crowded or confusing, they close it and tell themselves they will read it later. They will not.

• 1

  Front page: one gorgeous image, nothing else

  Think of it as a Netflix thumbnail. When you scroll through Netflix looking for something to watch, the image is what makes you click. High-quality image, right font for the genre, nothing else crowding it. One image that captures the feeling of what you are selling.

• 2

  Page two: a very simple logline

  Short, functional, containing the hook. If they are drawn in by the front page and then get two lines that intrigue them further, they will keep reading. Too much information on page two kills that momentum.

• 3

  Drip-feed the story, bit by bit

  You are not explaining the entire story. You are giving just enough to make them want to ask for more. If they feel they already have the whole story, there is no reason to meet you or read the script.

• 4

  Font must match genre

  Emma keeps a folder of fonts categorised by genre: horror fonts, comedy fonts, drama fonts. If someone opens your horror pitch and sees a comedy font, they are confused before reading a word. The visual tone of the deck has to tell the same story as the content. She mentioned Midsommar as an example of a horror that used such soft, flowery imagery and fonts that audiences unfamiliar with Ari Aster might have missed that it was horror at all.

• 5

  Do not use AI images on the front page

  Most people know when they are looking at an AI image. You do not know whether the person receiving your deck hates AI, is neutral, or loves it. The risk is not worth it. Use Shot Deck or similar services to find real images that capture the vibe of your story. If you do use AI, add your own design elements on top so it feels intentional and personal.

• 6

  Use stills from films, not actor headshots

  If you want to convey what a character looks like, find an image from a film that captures the feeling, not a headshot. A headshot implies casting. A film still implies character. These are very different things to the person reading your deck.

Every Company Has a Slate. And Everything Is Cyclical.

Emma describes development producer as the best job in the world: a regular salary, which writers rarely have, and you get paid to find and develop ideas. Inside a production company, every company has a slate of projects at different stages of development, and that slate reflects what the company wants to be known for. Some companies are exclusively horror. Some exclusively comedy. Some are only interested in drama based on true stories.

Right now in the UK, she says, many drama companies are looking for what she calls the ordinary-person hero: real-life stories of a small person fighting a large institutional wrong. Mr Bates vs The Post Office was the defining example. An ITV drama broadcast in January 2024 about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, in which hundreds of subpostmasters were wrongly prosecuted for theft caused by faulty software. It became a national phenomenon, watched by over 13 million people, and triggered real political change, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announcing new legislation within days of broadcast. That kind of story is now what many companies are actively seeking.

Is It a Feature Film or a TV Series? The Answer Changes Everything.

Emma gave a whole hour's talk on this at the London Screenwriters Festival. She has developed an instinct for it from years of being pitched at by students and writers. But she also offers a clear analytical framework.

Put a Part of Yourself in the Pitch. Not Your Autobiography. Something Relatable.

Commissioners and development producers respond to writers who have a personal connection to their material. Not because the story has to be autobiographical, but because the emotional truth has to come from somewhere real.

She used Vince Gilligan and Breaking Bad as the example. Gilligan was almost certainly never a chemistry teacher who cooked methamphetamine. But he was a father who understood the terror of not being able to provide for his children. That is the essence of why Walter White makes the choice he makes. The specifics are invented. The emotional core is real, and that is what makes it resonate.

A writer she is currently working with has a story about an older childless couple who make a wish on a magic Christmas cracker and their dog turns into a human child. Completely bonkers. But the writer and his wife know exactly what it feels like to have wished for a child that never came, and that grief is underneath every scene. Emma understood the story immediately because of that. The mad premise is what makes people want to watch. The real human feeling underneath is what makes them stay.

Trust the Process. If You Are Not Having a Meltdown at Some Point, Something Is Wrong.

Emma used to get frustrated with the days when nothing came out. She would sit in front of her computer and force herself to write, and what she wrote was not good and did not solve whatever problem she was stuck on. It took time to understand that those days are part of the process, not a failure of it.

Research the Producer. Send on a Tuesday. Never on a Monday Morning.

Once the pitch deck is ready and the script is in good shape, start with research: find films and TV shows similar to yours or that you love, get the producers' names from the credits, find their emails. Send a very short, very polite email asking if you can send the pitch. Reference something of theirs you genuinely liked. Do not attach anything to the first email.