DESIGNING THE PITCH PACKAGE: An Interview with Charles Borg

Motion graphic by Bella Miller.

“Pitch packages”, or “pitch decks”, are integral in bringing in funding to your film productions. Making your vision marketable, however, can be a difficult process without guidance, which is why we’ve interviewed Charles Borg, instructor of our virtual course Designing the Pitch Package, to tell us more about the class:

How will this course guide the participants in exploring the motivation behind making this particular movie, and better articulate the unique qualifications that make them the ideal fit to create it? 

Pitch decks are an essential part of the pitching process. Many producers will not make or have time to read your entire script so the deck allows them to understand the story and world on a macro level. Creating a deck forces you to hone your ideas and becomes a strong measure of whether the idea can be realized. Images also provide that cinematic “experience” words on the page can’t do alone. 

How is this course going to benefit individuals who find it challenging to reconcile their artistic vision with following market trends and meeting current industry demands?

Building a deck for your movie or TV show helps communicate the structure you see, especially with TV shows. Engaging in the discipline of creating a deck allows those reading it to understand whether it falls into current trends, or, perhaps how it might aim to break the mold and buck convention. 

Will participants have the chance to receive feedback on their pitches during the course? If yes, how will the feedback process be facilitated?

Feedback on the deck will happen each and every class —  this is an intense course that allows everyone to benefit from each other while working at your own pace.

Can you share any success stories from previous participants of the course who were able to successfully finance their films based on the pitches they developed during the program?

Many students from my classes have gone on to use building decks to benefit their careers. One student built a deck for a TV show then used it to write her script which was accepted to Blacklist. That got the attention of a boutique LA production studio that hired her to build a deck and write the script for a biopic. Another student was a retired woman who built her deck to secure a grant for her 501c3. 

To enroll or learn more about the Designing the Pitch Package course with Charles Borg, visit https://chicagofilmmakers.org/adult-filmmaking-classes/designing-pitch-packages.

Interview by Mariam Atallah, edits by Sofia Migaly, and motion graphic by Bella Miller.