PITCH ROYALE COMPETITION
PITCHING COMPETITION FOR AUSTRALIAN AND U.S./REST OF WORLD FILMMAKERS
Australian International Screen Forum and Scripted Ink/Pathways Showcase held the inaugural Pitch Royale Competition as part of the 2019 Australian International Screen Forum at Lincoln Center in New York.
The pitching competition was developed in association with Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin and Scripted Ink, and was designed to be an interactive and practical exercise that offered participants an opportunity to test their pitching skills in front of a live industry audience. The exercise aimed to mirror the real world development process and provided emerging filmmakers an opportunity to pitch their projects for 2 minutes in front screen development industry leaders.
Participants in the Pitch Royale Competition were all industry delegates at the 2019 Screen Forum. Pitches could be for feature films or episodic series. The competition had three rounds.
From an overwhelming number of applications, the competition commenced with a high caliber group of nineteen participants selected by the Screen Forum to pitch in front of Round 1 Judges, who were Greer Simpkin (Producer, Bunya Productions), Deirdre Brennan (former General Manager, NBC Universal Kids) and Krysanne Katsoolis (CEO and President, ViewPark).
They selected eight participants to move onto Round 2 with pitches that were views as original, universally marketable and delivered in a clear and captivating manner.
Round 2 Judges were Jenny Halper (Director of Development and Production, Maven Pictures), Todd Labarowski (Dreambridge Films, Producer THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, BERNIE, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY) and Schuler Weiss (Producer, PIERCING, GHOST TEAM and President of Development and Production Baz & Co). They selected the 4 participants to move the third and final round.
Round 3 judges were Baz Luhrmann (Director, MOULIN ROUGE!, THE GREAT GATSBY) , Catherine Martin (four-time Academy Award winner for production design and costume design), Shane Brennan (Executive Producer, NCIS) and Jason Blum (Producer, GET OUT, US, BLACKKKLANMAN).
The Round 3 Judges concluded the that each of the four finalists be declared a winner, each receiving $500 courtesy of a donation from Blumhouse Productions and having selected industry meetings arranged for them by the Screen Forum.
The Pitch Royale Competition winners for 2019 were Matthew Ford (dramatic feature) from Australia, and Cindy Chu (romantic drama feature), Marisa Fox (documentary feature) and Shaya Mulcahy (sci-fi thriller feature) from the United States.