#27 - Intro to Season 2
Leah and Angel discuss their offseason antics, and they look forward to season 2.
Leah and Angel discuss their offseason antics: contests, Austin, covid, and more. They talk about upcoming projects, aborted opportunities, lessons learned during season one, and how important it is that writers get paid for their work.
Episode Summary
- Promotion and script success. 0:03
- Leah Saint Marie and Angel Murphy discuss their break after recording Pitch! Season 1.
- Leah's talks about her experience in Austin promoting the podcast and her script, "Teatro dell'AMore," which made it into the second round of the Austin Film Festival screenwriting competition. (Check out Leah's mood real here: https://youtu.be/LLASLrtFuaM?si=JYRoeHJw92kTHKZP)
- Writing, acting, and Juilliard application. 2:40
- They discuss the recent writers' strike and its impact on the industry.
- They highlight the importance of practicing pitching skills by listening to successful pitches.
- Leah wants to attend Juilliard to improve her dialogue skills and receive mentorship from experienced storytellers.
- Writing, animation, and audience testing ideas. 7:27
- Leah plans to direct a short film titled "Hi, My Name is Teddy" and hire an animator to create rotoscoped footage.
- Angel is testing his loglines and ideas with a variety of people to get initial feedback and avoid spending a year working on a project that doesn't resonate with anyone. He's found useful insights from audience testing.
- Pitching and developing ideas in the entertainment industry. 12:37
- Angel shares his experiences with pitching ideas and receiving discouragement from mentors, despite their support and understanding of his vision.
- Leah acknowledges that people may not understand the full scope of a project when it's not fully developed, leading to discouragement.
- Optioning a script, compensation, and development process. 16:52
- Angel was approached by someone interested in optioning one of his scripts, but the person suddenly became unavailable because they already had three movies to produce next year. But is that really what happened? Or did the deal fall through because Angel demanded to be compensated for rewrites?
- Writing, compensation, and personal projects. 21:18
- Leah expresses frustration with people asking for free work, citing the value of a writer's time and skills.
- Leah shares her personal experience with GoFundMe, using it to fund a personal project related to their upbringing in Appalachia. (https://www.gofundme.com/f/leahs-birthday-help-her-leahs-fund-her-short)
- Angel is excited for season 2 of their podcast and encourages listeners to reach out with topics or questions for future episodes.