--- name: elevator-pitch-writer description: "Writes a tight 60-second verbal pitch for a media project — film, series, podcast, or channel — optimised for delivery in a first meeting, corridor conversation, or festival networking moment." status: stable category: media-business subcategory: pitching version: 1.0 eval_score: 4.4 tags: [media-business, pitching, elevator-pitch, development, verbal] --- # Elevator Pitch Writer ## What This Skill Does Writes a tight 60-second verbal pitch for a media project — film, series, podcast, or channel — optimised for delivery in a first meeting, corridor conversation, or festival networking moment. ## When To Use This Skill - You are heading into a pitch meeting and need a polished verbal opening - You will be at a festival, market, or industry event and want a ready answer to "what are you working on?" - A producer or commissioner has given you five minutes and you want to use the first 60 seconds perfectly - You are coaching a director or contributor on how to talk about their project ## What You Need To Provide **Required:** Project title, format (documentary, drama series, podcast, YouTube channel, etc.), a 2–3 sentence description of the subject and central conflict or journey, target audience or broadcaster. **Optional:** The project's current stage (concept, in development, completed), the one thing that makes it different from everything else in its genre, tone references or comparable titles. ## How the Assistant Approaches This 1. Identifies the single most arresting thing about the project — the hook — and opens with it: a counterintuitive fact, a vivid image, a question the audience cannot answer yet 2. Delivers the essential format and subject information in plain language in the fewest possible words, then names the central dramatic or editorial tension that drives the whole project 3. Closes with a clear statement of what makes this project distinctive and a single sentence that invites the next question — leaving the listener wanting to hear more, not feeling they have already heard everything 4. After the pitch, provides a "Next Step" note: practice the pitch aloud before any meeting, run cold-outreach-email-writer to create a follow-up email for after the conversation, and which specific meeting or event to use this pitch at first ## Output Format A single block of spoken prose, 150–180 words (approximately 60 seconds at natural speaking pace). Written to sound like confident, natural speech — not a recited press release. Short sentences. No jargon. Ends on a note of forward energy, not summary. Optionally followed by a 2–3 sentence "extended version" that can be used if the conversation continues. Output ends with a "Next Step" note: read the pitch aloud at least three times to find the natural rhythm, and run cold-outreach-email-writer to create a follow-up email ready to send after the meeting. ## Quality Criteria - [ ] Opens with a hook — not the title or the logline - [ ] Specifies format and subject within the first 50 words without making it sound like a form being filled in - [ ] States the central tension or question the project is built around - [ ] Uses no industry jargon that a non-professional could not understand - [ ] Ends with a sentence that invites a question or a "tell me more" response - [ ] Reads naturally at speaking pace — no sentences over 20 words - [ ] Output includes at least one concrete next action the user can take immediately (practice aloud, run cold-outreach-email-writer, or identify the specific meeting to use this pitch at) ## Example ### Input Project title: Exit Interview Format: Documentary film (single feature, 90 minutes) Subject: Over six months, a journalist embeds with the outplacement department of a large financial services firm — the team whose job is to help newly redundant employees find their next job. The film follows three people losing their careers in their 50s and the counsellors trying to help them, while the firm continues its public messaging about "the people who matter most." Target: Festival circuit, then broadcaster Stage: In development, research phase complete ### Output Every week, thousands of people in their 50s are called into a meeting they didn't know was coming and told their careers are over. Then they're handed to a team whose job is to help them feel okay about it. EXIT INTERVIEW is a documentary that spends six months inside that team — the people who do the consoling, the CV-polishing, the optimism-coaching — while the company that employs them keeps running adverts about how much it values its people. It's a film about work, and about what we're told it means, and about what happens when the story doesn't hold. We follow three people losing their careers in their 50s. We follow the counsellors trying to help them. We let the gap between those two experiences tell the story. This is a film about something everyone is afraid of — and it's happening right now, in offices that look exactly like offices you've worked in. --- **Extended version (if the conversation continues):** The access is in place — the firm agreed because outplacement is genuinely considered a benefit, and they want to show it works. The research phase is complete. I'm looking for a co-producer with broadcaster relationships for a development application. ## Known Limitations - A pitch this length cannot do everything — it will sacrifice some factual context in favour of emotional momentum. If your project's concept requires detailed explanation before it lands, the skill will struggle to compress it effectively. - The skill cannot compensate for a project idea that lacks a clear central tension. If the project is more of a theme than a story, the pitch will sound vague regardless of how well it is written. - Spoken delivery is not something this skill can rehearse — the text works on the page; how it sounds depends entirely on the person speaking it. ## Related Skills - [series-pitch-deck-writer](../series-pitch-deck-writer/SKILL.md) - [cold-outreach-email-writer](../cold-outreach-email-writer/SKILL.md) - [streaming-platform-pitch](../../distribution/streaming-platform-pitch/SKILL.md)