Day
4 was pitch preparation day!
In the morning the students developed their presentation skills with Lisa Pickup, an HR consultant who works at FremantleMedia, and in the afternoon they learnt more of the specifics of pitching a TV idea from Peter Cassidy, MD of Screenpop.
Once again, the students really had to stretch themselves, and again they hit heights they did not think possible when the day began. By all accounts their pitches are looking pretty damn good, despite having just half a day to put them together.
I didn’t see them practice their pitches this afternoon, but I can only assume that they haven’t copied Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, who clearly took an aide’s advice to ‘show that you’re excited to be there’ a little too far at a company conference. Peter played this video near the start of his talk, and since I simply cannot see it enough times, I’m putting it in here too.
One of the coolest things about the day was that both tutors felt they had learnt a lot too. Lisa felt that working with a non-corporate audience for the first time was a really rewarding challenge, and Peter said that he had a better understanding of his own presenting style as a result of trying to distil what he did naturally into a small set
of salient points.
After three long days of development, shooting, editing, and preparing their pitches, the students are ready to pitch their ideas, along with their promos, the the panel tomorrow.
Well, we think they’re ready… they seem less sure! You can get the inside track on how the students found today by heading over to the students’ blog.
We’re nearly there, and tomorrow is going to be a cracker.
