Perfecting the Pitch: Billy Ray's Tips
by Billy Ray · Writers Guild of America West
Short, concrete checklist from an A-list screenwriter. WGA write-up of a Writers Guild Foundation talk in which Billy Ray (Captain Phillips, Richard Jewell) gives eleven pitching rules. They cover index-card preparation, how to open, length, road-testing, deciding between pitching and writing on spec, and refusing leave-behinds.
More resources on Pitching & Selling Scripts
The Black List
Industry platform where screenwriters pay to host scripts and buy evaluations from professional readers, with highly scored scripts surfaced to agents, managers, and producers. Using it shows writers how their work rates against market standards and offers a route to representation.
Script Revolution
Free script-hosting site where screenwriters publish loglines and full scripts for independent producers and directors to search and read. Writers practise presenting work for the market, including loglines, genre tagging, and budget notes, and can be contacted directly by filmmakers.
Adventures in the Screen Trade
This is the classic insider account of how Hollywood buys scripts, and screenwriting communities still recommend it. William Goldman's account of working as a Hollywood screenwriter. It covers how studios, stars, and executives decide what gets made, along with meetings, pitching, rewrites, and deal-making. It is the source of the phrase "Nobody knows anything."
WGA West Screenwriters Handbook
This is the authoritative reference on which pitch requests count as unpaid work and what a writer can refuse. The Writers Guild's guide to the business side of selling a screenplay. It covers negotiating a screen deal, minimums, pitching on open writing assignments, sweepstakes pitching, leave-behinds and pre-writing, free work, and producer passes. The PDF is downloadable from the page.
Advice From Pro Screenwriters on Pitching
Scott Myers collects pitching threads from Eric Heisserer (Arrival) and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. They cover original and assignment pitches, feature pitch structure, tiered buyer meetings, visual aids, pitch length, revising between meetings, and handling outcomes. Detailed first-person accounts of how produced writers build and deliver a feature pitch, including the structure of an assignment pitch.
Scriptnotes Ep. 699: How to Talk About Yourself
John August and screenwriter Pamela Ribon cover general meetings, where writers pitch themselves rather than a project: small talk, finding common ground, discussing work under NDA, nerves, and practical setup for pitching on Zoom. General meetings ('generals') are the step before most pitches, and few sources cover them in depth. This episode is a practical, specific walkthrough from working writers.