Hiring an Actor to Pitch for You or Becoming a Good Pitcher Yourself?

I just saw an email announcing you can hire an actor for your pitch. Which is kind-of a brilliant idea (because being a great pitcher is quite a skill on its own) but having an actor pitch for you also kind-of defeats the purpose.

Because while the most important part of pitching is convincing someone to buy your project, the other important part of pitching is for the executive or producer to meet you and get to know you. A pitch is a great way for an executive to see how you are in a room, with stories and being creative on the spot (for example, if they are pitching you an idea in the middle of your pitch and you have to run with it).

So if you are hiring an actor to pitch your project you lose out on getting to meet and be in the room with the executive or producer.

And this brings me to a good point.  Being a great pitcher is a really important skill to develop and it is a totally separate skill than writing. Being a writer is about having the discipline to sit in an empty room and learn how to get your voice on the page.  Being a good pitcher is about being social, being adaptable, and, to be honest, smiling and nodding to every crazy idea the executive throws out to you.

So if you want to be a good pitcher — go out and practice.  If you have friends who are great pitchers and you are not, see if they can work on this with you.

That being said, you don’t have to be a great pitcher — as long as you understand the consequences of that decision.  For example, we have a client who hates to pitch and won’t do it (which is fine because he really just wants to write his own material).  But the flip side of that, he knows that he can’t go up for writing assignments (because pitches have to be done for writing assignments) and thus he will always have to write his own scripts on spec.

No matter what - I would always advocate against hiring an actor to take your place in a pitch because — even if he is a better pitcher than you — you never want someone else pitching your own words and ideas!