What Goes in a TV Pitch Deck?
One of, if not the most common questions I get from clients and creators is a pretty simple one:
“WHAT DO I PUT IN A PITCH DECK?”
So let’s break it down…
First of all, here are some quick nuts-and bolts items you should know about your pitch deck.
Your pitch deck should be delivered in PDF format. Don’t send PowerPoints, Keynotes, Google Slide links, Canva links, links to your personal website, or anything else that isn’t a PDF. I’ll get into the reason why in another post, but for now, just know that it needs to be a PDF.
The pitch deck should land somewhere between 15-20 pages.
This is an internal sales document. It’s not going to be shown publicly, so feel free to use reference images from existing TV shows and movies if you want.
You should ideally stick to 2 fonts used throughout the pitch deck. One font should be your Title font. You use this on the cover page and for all of your page headings. It can be more decorative and flashy. The second font is your copy font. This is the font you’ll use for the body text of your deck. The most important thing about this font is readability. Think basic fonts like Times New Roman, Helvetica Neue, etc. My personal favorite is an Adobe font called Proxima Nova.
This guide is tailored specifically to TV pitches. That being said, many of the same rules and structures apply if you’re putting together a pitch deck for a feature. In the future, I’ll also be releasing a similar guide specific to pitching features.
Alright, so let’s go section by section.
THE COVER
The big thing to remember about your cover is that you want an image that’s eye-catching and is going to hook the reader. On the cover, you want the title in big letters with your name and credit in some form presented in smaller letters.
For instance,
[Your Show]
Created by [Your Name]
OR
[Your Show]
A New Comedy from [Your Name]
Avoid lo-res, pixelated images and make sure that your image isn’t too busy.
LOGLINE
I’m gonna spend a pretty small amount of time on this section, as there are literally thousands of articles, blogs, and books about how to write a good logline. Chances are if you’re at the point where you’re building a pitch deck, you’ve already settled on a logline. Pop it here on your first page as a way to introduce the project that you’ll be presenting. The logline should be presented without any other text so that it can stand on its own and not get lost.
SERIES OVERVIEW
The Series Overview is a summary of your main story and the main characters of your show. You’re essentially building a roadmap for the rest of your pitch. Everything you introduce here will get expounded upon later on in the deck.
In this section, you want to set up all of the important things that the buyer needs to know in order to understand your series and get excited about it. This should include a brief summary of the overall story that you’ll be telling. In that summary, it helps to use examples from actual episodes.
You might also want to start introducing the names of your main characters here. When you do that, make sure that they’re presented in context. Don’t just start throwing a list of names at us. That becomes very difficult to track for a reader. Tell us who someone is in this world. You can include their role on the show (i.e. main character, antagonist, etc) or who they are in the world (i.e. a down-on-his-luck schoolteacher, a bubbly accountant, the first teenage Galactic Emperor, etc.)
The other element that should be present in the Series Overview are the nuts and bolts of your series. By nuts and bolts, I’m referring to pieces of information like:
Length (22 min, hour-long, etc)
Format (series, anthology, feature, limited series, etc)
Genre (comedy, drama, sci-fi, fantasy, dramedy, single-cam, multi-cam, etc)
Serialization
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Just remember that the nuts and bolts answer the most basic questions that an exec might have about your project. There’s no need to be overly clever or eloquent with the way you present your nuts and bolts. I usually start my Series Overview with 1-2 very simple sentences that put all the info right out on the table.
A couple examples of what the Nuts & Bolts might look like for some well-known series:
The Office is a half-hour, mockumentary-style sitcom that revolves around the day-to-day lives of the employees at a failing paper company.
Game of Thrones is an hour-long serialized fantasy series based on the best-selling series of books by George R.R. Martin.
And an example from a show I’m currently in the process of developing:
Stay Weird is a 30-minute, single-camera comedy centered around five friends trying to figure shit out together at a Southern California seaside party college.
THE WORLD/RULES OF THE WORLD
The World section is where you lay out everything that we need to know about how this show functions.
This section is a little more flexible than other sections of your pitch deck. Depending on the genre/format of your show, you may not need to include it. General rule of thumb- the higher concept your project, the more likely you’ll need a World section, and the longer it’ll be. For example, a slice-of-life sitcom is probably going to have a pretty short World section because it exists in a world that we already understand pretty well. On the flip side, the World section for a sci-fi series is going to need to be pretty expansive in order for us to understand how life on your series operates.
If you’re pitching something higher concept, it can be pretty easy for this section to get way too long. Keep the info in here to the absolute essentials that we need to know in order to understand how the show works. Avoid getting lost in backstory, unnecessary world-building details, and overly complex jargon. Remember, this is the first time that the reader is being introduced to these concepts, and we can only digest so much information at once.
Another detail that should be included in the World section is the physical location where most of the episodes will take place.
CHARACTERS
This is going to be one of, if not the biggest section of your pitch deck. Start with your main character and move down in order of importance. The sweet spot tends to be 5-7 characters. Any more than that, and the reader’s eyes start to glaze over. You should have more written about your main characters than your supporting characters. In fact, your last couple of supporting characters can often live on the same page.
Here are the important things that we need to know about each character:
Their personality
How they relate to the other characters on the show
How others feel about them
Their role on the show (protagonist, villain, voice of reason, etc)
*Note: if you are pitching a comedy, each character should have at least one laugh in their section. More is certainly better.*
In your Characters section, feel free to use comps from other shows and movies. It can be a useful to convey a character’s personality in a clear succinct way. Just make sure to use more than one comp in combination with each other. Otherwise, you’re just ripping off a character that already exists.
When describing each character, keep backstory to a minimum. This is one of the most common mistakes I see creators make in their pitch decks. Focus on what the character is going to do on the show going forward, not on what happened to them in the past. Remember, backstory is going to be what we see onscreen. We want to keep the focus on the show that the buyer is going to be buying. If you do include backstory, make sure that it is an absolutely essential piece of information that we NEED to know in order to understand the character and/or the story.
Use tangible examples from the show to illustrate your character’s personality. Just telling me that a character is compassionate doesn’t do much. Talking about how they volunteer with underprivileged kids every weeks shows us.
Make sure that each character can sit down. By that I mean that every character needs a “but”. If a character is just one thing, that’s not interesting. Compelling characters have dimensions and layers.
Now I have a very particular way that I like to structure the Character sections in my pitch decks. For each of my main characters, I create a page that has a single image of the character, along with their name (in big striking letters) and their character description. Here’s an example from a project that I’m currently working on. Note that placeholder text is being used here.
After this initial page, I like to include a collage of images that give you a greater sense of the general vibe and aesthetic for the character. That way, you’re seeing a bit more of a range of what this character might look like, while also getting a greater sense of their personality. It also keeps us from getting too locked into one specific look for the character in the reader’s mind. Here’s an example of what the “Martin” character’s collage would look like.
THE PILOT
The pilot episode is going to be the first and most in-depth of the sample episodes you present in your deck. Regardless of your format, it’s expected that you go over your pilot in the pitch deck.
In presenting the pilot, focus on the essentials of the episode that the executive needs to know in order to buy the pitch. Stay away from beat-by-beat explanation of each scene. We want to leave the reader excited about where this series can go, not overwhelmed by an overload of information. The play-by-play of an entire episode of television can be extremely difficult to track, especially when you consider that this is the first time this reader is being introduced to this world. Err on the side of brevity, and focus on the important elements of each act of your pilot.
You also do not need to walk us all the way through to the end of the story. You can leave leave at a cliffhanger in the third act. Keep in mind though, that this isn’t necessary by any means. Just an option.
SAMPLE EPISODES
There are two main approaches to the Sample Episodes section of your pitch deck. It all depends on which approach suits your show the best.
OPTION A: 2-3 Sample Episodes
With this approach, you want to give the buyer a full spectrum of what the show looks like. Think of each episode as a different flavor you’re putting on the plate. Each episode description should be about the same length, but all should be shorter than your pilot description.
OPTION B: Rapid-Fire Loglines
This approach is best for episodic comedies, where you have a bunch of different ideas for episodes, and you want to convey as many as you can to the buyer. Each of these loglines should be able to generate a laugh by themselves.
There are two main goals to the Sample Episodes section.
Get the executive excited about the possibilities with this series.
Prove that this idea has a lot of meat on the bone. There are tons of places you can go story-wise.
*Note* Don’t hold rigidly to the idea that your season will be (x) number of episodes. You don’t get to decide that. Your network does.
SEASON ARCS
The goal of this section is to show that you have a vision for the future of the series. Focus on Season 1 first and walk us through the main story arc of the season.
Focus on answering these questions.
How will the characters change over the course of the season?
Is they’re a goal they’re trying achieve?
Where will we find ourselves at the end of the season?
From there, move on to the arcs for your future seasons. You may want to build a long roadmap, going season by season, or give just a more general vision for where you see things going.
Stay away from rigid statements like, “I’ve planned out every episode of the entire six-season series, along with the follow-up film and accompanying app.” As an executive, this tells me that you’re gonna be a pain in the ass to work with and that you aren’t prepared to collaborate. Use this section to show that while you have a clear vision for the future of the series, you also understand the nature of the creative process.
If you have a big twist somewhere in the future which will turn the series on its head, share it here. (Think the Good Place twist at the end of Season 1).
BIOS
At the end of the deck, include bios for the series creator and any attached producers. Each bio should be accompanied by a professional headshot.
OPTIONAL ELEMENTS
Depending on the nature of your show, there are a few additional sections that you can work into your pitch deck.
Tone
Theme
Visual Style
Influences/Comps
Creator Statement
The location of each of these items is going to vary depending on the style of your pitch deck and your series as a whole. In the coming weeks, I’ll be putting together a deep-dive on these optional elements, outlining how best to deploy them, as well as some guidance on when and when not to incorporate them into your pitch deck.
And that’s it! Your pitch deck should finish with either your bio page(s) or a simple back cover. My personal preference is to take my front cover and simply duplicate it on the last page. This gives the deck a sense of finality and closure, while also making it 100% clear that this is the last page, and that we’re done. It makes everything feel just a little bit more intentional and removes any doubt that a page got omitted in the email or the export.
If you have any questions about this structure, please feel free to reach out to me directly at carlo@maranty.com. I love talking about this stuff, and I love sharing what I know about pitching with other creators. If you are in the process of prepping a pitch, I also offer pitch prep services through my company, Maranty Media. We offer both pitch coaching, as well as pitch deck design. We also offer free consultations, so if you’re interested, please reach out here. I look forward to getting to work with you, and to helping you get your show on TV!